


Therapy

by fannishliss



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, Hydra vs Shield, Mind Control, Multi, Mysticism, Not Canon Compliant, Primarily Steve and Bucky, Psychic Abilities, Super Soldier Serum, Superhero Registration Act, This "Therapy" is the way Hydrans Do It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-17 14:09:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2312393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The War is over, and Shield won.  After twenty years lost in a Hydra cryo cell, Steve's been sent to Therapy, where Hydrans like Natasha who've shaken off their conditioning now help Soldiers adapt to peacetime.   </p><p>The world is supposed to be at peace, but the threat of Registration looms as the public grows ever less comfortable with the Soldiers and powerfully psychic Hydrans still in their midst.  Now something even worse is coming, and only Steve and his friends have a chance at stopping it.</p><p>This story is now complete!  Don't let the odd title put you off.  Steve and Bucky forever!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Steve meets the Black Widow

Steve sat stiffly on the luxurious sofa, candles glimmering around the darkened room in what he guessed was an attempt to soothe.  A clean scent of lavender and maybe something lemony drifted through the air.

“Am I supposed to take my clothes off?” Steve asked.

“There’s no ‘supposed,’” Natasha said. She lounged in a large overstuffed chair no less luxurious than the sofa.  Stark must really have loved Coulson’s project to set them up so nicely.   Natasha’s green eyes flashed white, then she sighed. “Fury sent you.  That man, I love him, but he is so clueless sometimes.”

“What? Why?” Steve retorted. “You don’t think I need Therapy?”

“Of course you need Therapy, just look at you.” Natasha’s piercing eyes sized him up in a way that reminded him all too much of fighting Hydrans in the field.  He stiffened, his body’s fighting reflexes going combat ready despite his efforts to stay relaxed.

Natasha immediately averted her gaze. “Calm down,” she crooned, showing the flats of both her hands.  In her soft cotton dress and bare feet, she looked so innocent and innocuous.  Steve knew she had passed her psych evals and training for Therapy with flying colors or she wouldn’t be here amongst Coulson’s hand-picked team of Therapists.  “The War’s been over for almost five years now, Cap, and I defected to Shield three years before that.  I’m not the enemy.”

“I know that,” Steve said tightly.  “I just…”

“You know it, but your body doesn’t,” Natasha murmured.  “I know how it is.”

“Hydran Agents are almost as strong as Shield Soldiers in the field,” Steve said, “but Fury and Coulson have you all secreted away as Therapists.  I don’t get it.”

“We go where we’re needed most,” Natasha said. “Besides.  I owe a debt to Shield that isn’t yet balanced, maybe never will be.  Whatever Shield needs from me — wherever I can do the most good — that’s where I’m going to go.  So if Steve Rogers needs a friend, that’s what I’m going to be.”

“Is that what I need?” Steve asked bitterly, remembering everyone he’d lost. “A friend.”

“If that’s what you need me to be,” Natasha said.  Her unsmiling face was clear and open, and Steve wondered at the rapid Hydran thought processes spinning behind her eyes. Would he ever be able to bring himself to trust one of them? Honestly, he didn’t know.

But maybe today was a place to start.

“Better to make a friend than to nurse an old enmity,” Steve said.

Natasha’s lips quirked. “Good words to live by,” she agreed.  “So — you wanna watch a baseball game?”

The Dodgers had almost moved to California while he was on ice, so Steve had been fanatical about catching every game since he woke up, superstitious that his inattention had somehow contributed to the near-loss of his home town’s beloved team.

“What? How did you know—“

“Doesn’t take enhanced Hydran perception to know you’re a baseball freak, Rogers,” Natasha laughed. “Every one from here to the New Triskelion knows not to come between you and the Dodgers.”

Steve didn’t laugh though.  “Tell me.  What does Hydran perception tell you about me?”

Natasha averted her gaze again.  “I’m not sure you’re ready for that yet.”

“Try me,” Steve said. 

Natasha turned.  Her face fell blank, and her chin titled slightly to one side.  Her eyes rapidly flicked over him from top to bottom, flashing white just for a second as her serum-enhanced vision focused in on Steve.

Natasha looked at Steve and Steve looked back.

“You’re not sure I could take you in a fight.  I’m not either, to be honest, and I wouldn’t like to try. But what’s sad, and this is why you’re here, right now, is that you’re still ready to fight, even though the War is over.  You’re angry.  You’re alone.  You need a friend.”

Steve felt the anger flare up inside him and tried to tamp it down.

“It’s not you I’m angry with,” he said.  “I’m sorry you’re getting the brunt of it.”

“It’s my job,” Natasha said.  “Helping Soldiers adjust to peacetime — it’s a good job, I’ll take it.”

“I do need a friend,” Steve blurted.  “But all my friends are dead.” Especially the one I need the most, he thought to himself with an edge of despair.

“I like you, Rogers,” Natasha said.  “I may not be the one you need most, but I hope you’ll come to trust me as a friend.”

Steve said nothing.  Too many years in the field, fighting Hydra, were still too fresh in his mind, even though the War had been over for long enough now that a lot of veterans had been able to put their lives back together — or at least to start.

“Do you want to watch a ballgame or what, Rogers?” Natasha said, moving to sit next to him on the couch.

“Yeah,” Steve had to admit.

“May I Touch you?” Natasha asked.

The literature Fury had given him had explained that many former Agents used enhanced Touch along with their other enhanced perceptions in Therapy — but Therapists would always ask for explicit permission to Touch, even casually, and certainly before their Touch became sexual.

Steve laughed, nervously.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I read your profile.  I can’t believe I’m willingly sitting on a couch with the infamous Black Widow, much less considering letting you Touch me.”

Natasha was acknowledged to have been one of Hydra’s most powerful agents, and some analysts went so far as to argue that Natasha’s defection from Hydra may have been one of the turning points that ultimately led to Shield winning the War.

“I want to reassure you that our sessions are fully monitored and recorded by the resident AI,” Natasha said soothingly.  “If you allow me to Touch you, I’ll be using a level one empathic depth only.  I only want to help you relax and feel good for a change.  How long has it been since you’ve slept more than a couple of hours?”

Steve barked a laugh and shook his head. “I almost never sleep, and when I do, it’s never for more than two hours.”

Natasha shook her head.  “Steve, I know you’re probably the biggest success the Super Soldier program ever produced, but everyone needs to sleep.”

“And you’re going to make it all better for me, hm?” Steve said, with a wry face.

Natasha eyed him levelly.  “I will, or maybe it will be Clint, or Sam, or Pepper, or someone else.  We’ll find a match for you in Therapy, and even if it’s not me, I’ll still want to be your friend.”

Steve couldn’t help shaking his head a little at the idea, but something about Natasha was soothing, even if she hadn’t Touched him yet.

He laughed, a little hopeless, a little bitter. What did he have to lose?

“Jarvis?” he called out.  He’d been introduced to the AI when he first came into the building for Therapy orientation.

“Yes, Captain Rogers?” a remarkably human-sounding voice calmly answered.

“I consent to casual Touch, empathic level one,” Steve said, looking into Natasha’s pale green eyes as he spoke.

“Noted,” Jarvis answered.

“Thank you, Steve,” Natasha said. “You won’t regret it.” Her eyes flashed almost imperceptibly as she lay her long, tapering fingers on the bare skin of his forearm.

At first nothing changed, but then Natasha turned on the game, which she must have recorded specially for Steve.  He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and some small part of the overwhelming load of grief and worry that had been dragging him down slipped away.

“Good,” Natasha said, and Steve found he didn’t mind her Touch as much as he’d feared he would. 


	2. Walks with Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve doesn't understand what the Hydran serum did to Natasha, or how Therapy works. Stubborn and awkward, he quizzes Natasha.

Steve liked Natasha, and he didn’t really know what to do with that. 

On the one hand, it was good. They hung out. They watched ballgames. They went walking in the City, Natasha wearing dark glasses and striding along down crowded sidewalks without any overt concern. When Steve went tense, as he often did, Natasha would casually take his hand, and his hypervigilance would slowly seep away in response to her Hydran Touch. 

Steve tried to read up on how Hydra had adapted Shield’s Super Soldier Serum to create the perfect spies and assassins — Agents who could practically read minds, who could seamlessly slip into plausible cover identities, and who were able to convince their targets of almost anything. Steve could grasp the basic biochemistry, but once the theory trespassed into the realm of “animal magnetism,” “mesmeric current,” “qi,” and “etheric transference,” his eyes rolled back into his head. 

“How does it work?” Steve finally asked. 

“Truth or bullshit?” Natasha answered, stroking her thumb against his palm. To most observers, they were any couple sitting at an outdoor cafe, drinking coffee and leaning toward one another in private conversation. After six weeks, Natasha’s Touch remained casual, but Steve had agreed to let her go deeper to empathic level three. 

“Truth,” he said. With Natasha’s Hydran energy running up his arm and warming him through his core, he felt almost contented. 

“Okay,” she smiled wrily. “Truth it is. No one really knows how it works, or why the serum activates powers in some people but not others.” 

“How do you think it works,” Steve probed with something like a smile. 

Natasha lifted her shoulder in an eloquent Russian shrug. “You tell me,” she challenged. 

“I can feel warmth,” Steve said, “passing into me, running up my arm and into my chest.” 

Natasha shook her head, just slightly. “Subjects have reported this feeling of warmth, but it’s never been detected under controlled circumstances.” 

“But I feel it,” Steve said. “Right now.”

“And how does it make you feel?” Natasha asked. A hint of a smile played on her lips, so much more thrilling than Mona Lisa’s. 

“Better,” Steve admitted. “More relaxed. Like — like something was missing, and you’re helping me to become whole again.”

“Hypnosis?” Natasha hazarded. “Power of suggestion?” 

“It’s not mumbo jumbo, it’s a serum,” Steve said. 

Natasha lifted her unoccupied hand in surrender. “Placebo?” she offered. 

Steve’s jaw tightened. Natasha lifted the hand she’d just waved, met Steve’s eye for permission, and slowly, gently, caressed that tension away. 

“You just did that,” he accused. “Thanks, by the way. My headaches have really gotten better.” 

“Glad to hear it,” she said, avoiding his question. 

“How,” he repeated. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “Part of it must be power of suggestion, don’t you think?” 

“Maybe. But I’ve never been very suggestible.” 

Natasha scoffed. “You volunteered for the Super Soldier Serum!” 

“I was five feet four, ninety-five pounds, and had a list of ailments as long as my arm!” Steve objected. “What’s your excuse?” 

Natasha’s green eyes went flat, like the ocean under a thunderhead. “I don’t have one. My earliest memories are Hydran implants. I have no idea who I was, where I came from — whether I volunteered, or if I was sold or stolen. My middle name is a joke. ‘Alienovna’— daughter of someone we don't know.” 

“Natasha, I’m sorry,” Steve said immediately, full of contrition. 

Natasha pulled the last of her iced latte up through the green straw, rattling the empty cubes. 

“Not your fault. You were already at Shield, maybe, volunteering to try and solve the problem.” 

The warmth of her hand had faded. Now it was just another hand, like a random unmodified human’s. 

“I didn’t mean it the way it came out,” Steve said. “I didn’t mean you had an excuse.” 

“Maybe I did,” Natasha said, staring at Steve with her level gaze. “Maybe I volunteered, just like you. Unless I meet someone who knew me then, I’ll never know.” 

Steve held on to Natasha’s cold hand, and finally raised it to his lips. Locking eyes, he kissed her knuckles. 

“I do consider you a friend. I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me. I’m so much better now than when Fury first sent me.” 

Natasha exhaled. “Even Therapists need Therapy, you know,” she said with a shaky laugh. 

“Wow,” Steve smiled. “I’d like to meet your Therapist.” Natasha was the best, Fury and Coulson both agreed. 

Natasha’s flat gray eyes flashed white and she bit her lip. 

“What?” Steve prompted. 

“Don’t pull that thread,” Natasha said, and she extracted her hand from Steve’s grip. “Not yet.”

“What?” Steve said, frowning. Natasha never pulled back. She constantly, gently, encouraged him forward. 

Her features were perfect, like a Venus in marble, brought to life. “Caution isn’t the fastest way to live,” she said, “but it’s a good way not to die.” 

“Can’t argue with that,” Steve said after a moment. 

“Come on,” Natasha said, and stood, and extended her hand, and they walked back toward Stark Tower, with a strange heat slowly seeping back into Steve from a woman more flawed, more complex and beautiful, than any marble statue.


	3. Natasha goes to her Therapist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: not "therapy" like in real life -- this is just one idea of what might happen amongst folks with incredible psychic powers.

“Jarvis, please tell my Therapist I’d like to see him,” Natasha said once she’d left Steve in his suite.    
  
“I will alert you when he is ready,” Jarvis responded.  
  
“Thank you,” Natasha said.    
  
Steve, regardless of what he might think, was an easy client.  His inner light was strong. He’d been hurt — his life had gone astray — he’d made a few bad decisions and suffered from the actions of evil men.  But despite the aching loss that threatened sometimes to overwhelm him, Steve wasn’t torn inside like so many of the Soldiers Natasha had met.  Steve, for good or ill, believed in certain absolutes and tried, to the very best of his abilities, to uphold them.  His capacity to believe in absolute good was shocking to Natasha. Most of her life had been a spider’s web of lies.  She’d made herself up as she went along, until meeting Fury and Coulson after her defection, and they’d helped her find work she was proud to be part of.    
  
It was crazy, really, for any former Soldier or Agent to trust anyone involved with either organization.  On the surface, sure, Hydra stood for chaos and lies, and clearly fell to the evil side of the equation — but Shield didn’t purely balance Hydra out, despite true believers like Steve. In fact, a great deal  of Steve’s anger was rooted in the many disappointments Shield had dealt him.    
  
Yet, here they were, a nest of misfits, runaways, and rejects, sheltering in the very highest echelons of Shield, catering to the schemes and plans of its two co-directors.    
  
God, she needed Therapy.  But, first, a hot shower.  
  
Stark had benefited greatly from Therapy himself, so when Coulson needed a high-security center for his fledgling program, Stark had delivered.  Natasha’s suite -- especially her beautifully appointed bath -- was everything a billionaire’s most tasteful manager could dream up — Pepper had drawn the outlines, and Natasha had gratefully filled them in.  
  
Natasha had dried off, moisturized, dressed, and was sipping a delicious juice cocktail when Jarvis chimed.  
  
“He’s ready to see you now.”  
  
“Thanks, Jarvis,” Natasha said.    
  
His floor wasn’t up near the top of the Tower with the other Therapists.  He was down in the high teens, where escape from aerial attack on the building had a greater likelihood of success.   Natasha assumed that he felt any other form of attack stood little chance of breaching the building's formidable defenses, himself not the least of them.  
  
The elevator ride took about a minute, and then the doors opened, and she stepped into his rooms.    
  
They were warm, and dark, and soft.  The lights were very low.  It wasn’t the most inviting atmosphere for anyone suffering from battle fatigue — too many places where someone might be hiding.  Still, having a bolt hole wasn’t the worst thing in the world, and really, that’s what he’d made — the world’s most exclusive bolt hole.    
  
“Hello — “ Natasha called as she stepped off the elevator.  He always appreciated verbal identification. There weren’t many Hydrans as good with his ears as he was, despite the idea that Therapists were meant to Listen.  He had probably unravelled half her week from just that one word.    
  
“ _hello~_ ” he said, the mask filtering out his undertones, telling her less than Jarvis might. “ _you want a level three sexual encounter~  i need a few moments~_ ”  
  
“Thank you,” Natasha said, kicking off her shoes and pulling her dress off over her head.    
  
The Hydran waved her onto the table.  She put her hands over her head and he placed a knotted anchor cord in her hands.  She elected not to use the ankle loops she sometimes liked.    
  
“ _close your eyes, pauchok~_ ” He called her little spider.  If only she could hear his unfiltered voice again, to piece it into her past where she could feel it echo.    
  
“ _not today, little one~_ ” he said.  “ _your new client is a handful~_ ”  
  
“He’s not so bad,” Natasha said.    
  
The Hydran peered down at her, swaddled in black from head to toe.  His mask and visor hid his true face from her, distorted his voice, veiled his gaze — and still he resonated with more power than any Hydran she’d ever encountered.    
  
His right hand hovered nearly three inches above her sternum, but she could already feel the penetrating intensity of his Touch.  He could stop her heart if he wanted, convince her to dive out a window, plant a cancer that would kill in a year’s time. She trusted him not to do anything like that.  Instead, just like Steve, Natasha felt a mysterious fire catch grow in her core, warmth that clearly came from the gifted hands of the Therapist.    
  
She relaxed into that warmth, hooked her own Hydran energy into what he was feeding her, and let herself fall.    
  
His hand, as it shaped the air above her, felt like a dream.  She felt each caress like an angel’s kiss, incorporeal and perfect. The Touch grew warmer as his hand came closer, until, without her realizing, he lay his bare hand on her belly.    
  
The muscles of her abdomen jumped as she registered the Touch, and he stroked across her tummy, calming her.    
  
“ _please state your consent to level three sexual Touch~_ ” he said calmly.  
  
“I consent,” she breathed.    
  
His hand began to move, and everywhere it moved, it left a trail of shivering warmth.  His Touch awakened her body, made her feel perfect, left her craving more of him.  
  
He had lightly caressed her arms and hands, legs and feet, shoulders and neck, her face, her belly, her breasts.  Everywhere he Touched wanted more.  Her breasts tingled with desire, her nipples standing tall and nearly pulsing with the urge to press against his hand.  Her belly quivered as his light Touch almost tickled.  He spent a little time with her nipples, teasing them, unleashing his Hydran fire in the merest trickle, making her moan and beg.    
  
“Please,” she said.  “Please Touch me!”  
  
“ _sure thing, doll~_ ” he said, and her analytical mind tried to seize on the accent he’d revealed when he lay his bare right hand on her sex.  
  
Her mind was emptied by the jolt of pleasure that ran directly into her nervous system from his gentle hand.  She came, arching hard against nothing — and he hadn’t even started.    
  
“Please, please,” she begged through gritted teeth.     
  
“ _breathe~_ ” he reminded her.  
  
She tried to breathe, she did, but the ecstasy arcing through her barely let her body to relax even long enough to draw in a shuddering gasp.    
  
She felt his left arm moving.  He hardly ever used that arm in Touch.  She tried to focus— tried to See — but the waves of pleasure choked her concentration.  There was a hint of light — something shining — and then he lay his left hand on her forehead and slipped two fingers of his right hand between the slick and swollen folds of her sex.    
  
She seized as though she were being electrocuted, her body convulsing as his fingers slipped again and again across her clit, as his other hand Touched her deepest memories, sifting through the implants for a glimpse of what remained.    
  
“Please--” she begged, beyond words, and he gave her bliss, and something so much more precious.    
  
She came to as he caressed her skin with a damp cloth, wiping away the sweat from her heavy limbs, his hands secure inside heavy leather gloves.    
  
Natasha put on her dress and denied to herself that she was weeping.    
  
“I owe you,” she said.  “I owe you so much.  If you’re ever ready to take off that mask again, let me know.  I want to Look into your eyes and let you know how much you’ve done for me.”  
  
He didn’t speak, just Touched her lightly on the wrist in a wordless affirmation.  Even through the glove, his Touch burned.    
  
Natasha went back to her suite, and sat pondering in the darkness until well after midnight.    
  
She had her mother’s eyes.    
  
  
 


	4. At Clint's place with friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha takes Steve to hang out at Clint's with Sam. Not everything is hunkydory, but Steve is surprised how good a time he has --really surprised!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is coming along nicely. I can promise you a BIG denouement, hints of which are now in place. :) 
> 
> Disclaimer: this is NOT therapy like in real life. No resemblance to real life therapy is intended. Hydrans have psychic powers, which changes the playing field a lot when it comes to PTSD. I hope you will enjoy it.

“You’re telling me a god smuggled liquor out of Asgard for you,” Steve said.    
  
Clint chuckled. “You don’t have to believe me.  But drink it slow, or you’ll be waking up tomorrow wondering what hit you.”  
  
Just the fumes coming out of the very small glass were potent enough to make Steve shake his head.  A scent like honey — flowers — time — Steve took a tiny sip and his tongue went numb. He swallowed, and warmth spread out from his throat and filled his whole body.  
  
He looked up at Clint, eyebrows high.  
  
“Skol,” Clint said cheerfully and went back to flipping burgers.  
  
Steve felt Natasha’s familiar Touch on his shoulder, and smiled as she sat down beside him.    
  
“Norse Gods? Really?” Steve asked. He’d lost twenty years to Hydra, of course times would change, but surely no one expected alien contact.  
  
Natasha nodded.  “You can think of them as aliens instead of gods, if that helps, but Thor does command lightning, so.”  
  
“I’d want a drop of that if I didn’t think it would put me down,” Sam said with a grin from his chaise longue.  
  
“Oh, I think you should try it,” Steve argued, offering Sam the bottle.    
  
Sam just raised his can of cheap beer and toasted Steve silently, while Natasha nursed her iced tea.  
  
It was a pretty small get together, but Steve was happy to be there anyway.   Every night he slept a little better; every day his emotional responses felt a little more under his control.  Looking out across the top of Clint’s building, in a bad neighborhood of New York City, everything looked and smelled right to Steve.  The cry of sirens and the noise of car engines, honking,  shouting — it was all blessedly familiar.  Maybe the folks he was drinking with had a few more powers than unaugmented humans, but they were great nonetheless.  
  
Some of Steve’s new friends weren’t there.  Tony and Pepper were in Malibu for the week, doing West Coast inspections.  Clint’s roomie Kate was around someplace; there was a turkey burger on the grill for her.   And Bruce hardly ever left his labs; Steve didn’t know him that well yet anyway.  
  
“Who wants food?” Clint asked.  
  
Sam and Steve and Natasha lined up for the giant juicy burgers Clint put onto toasted buns for them straight off the grill.  Steve layered on lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mustard, ketchup, mayo, and jalapenos, and Natasha laughed as he gingerly bit into it, groaning in delight.    
  
“Never get enough,” Steve said after his second burger.  “But these are so good.”  
  
“I hear you,” Sam said. “Food bills be damned, sometimes it’s fun to eat three times as much as I used to, and burn it all up.”  
  
“Looking good,” Natasha nodded, and Sam did a little pose with a smile, showing off his trim physique.  
  
“I made plenty,” Clint promised, his own second burger dripping onto his plate.     
  
Potato salad, corn on the cob, baked beans, and Kate had shown up with brownies for dessert before snagging a burger and vanishing again.  
  
“She has a social life,” Clint shrugged.  
  
Steve couldn’t remember a meal this good, since… well, a long time.  
  
Contented, his stomach full like it rarely was, lulled by the strong Asgardian liqueur, Steve went ahead and asked.  
  
“You guys were both Soldiers?”  
  
It wasn’t polite to ask, but Steve thought maybe they were past the level of polite.  
  
“I was,” Sam said.  “Serum didn’t bulk me up all that much, but I did get the heightened reflexes.  Perfect for pararescue.  My partner Riley and I were responders at a Hydra siege, and they took us down.  Riley didn’t make it, and Hydra shot me up.  Didn’t work out like they planned.”  
  
Steve nodded.  “You have a strong Touch?”    
  
Sam shook his head.  “Nah, not so much, but I am a pretty good Reader.  And I love doing Therapy.  It just feels right, you know?  
  
Steve nodded, but looked away. “I fought a lot of Hydrans back in the day.  Readers, pushers, stingers, pyros — it got pretty hairy out there. Nobody thought in those days about how those same powers could be used for good.”  
  
“Sorry, man,” Sam said, politely averting his gaze.  “I know you saw some bad shit.”  
  
Steve nodded.  “I was probably a lot luckier than most Soldiers, actually.  Anyway. Water under the bridge.”  
  
They all sat silent for a moment, giving the War its due.    
  
“Do you remember how they got you?” Clint asked, softly.    
  
Steve let out a breath, ready to talk about it.  “We were after a scientist, Arnim Zola.”  
  
Sam and Clint nodded. A lot of Steve’s life had become public record. Didn’t make it hurt any less. Natasha reached out and gently stroked his hand.  Her comfort flowed easily into him, and he could accept it as second nature by now.    
  
“Zola was still trying to refine the Hydran serum, trying to make it stronger by incorporating Super Soldier aspects,” Steve said.  “He was anxious to get his hands on Soldiers he considered ‘prime specimens.’  That was me and Bucky, I guess.” Steve swallowed.  What was history for his friends was still so fresh to him.    
  
“Capturing Zola was high priority for Shield —he’d left burned out test subjects all over Europe.  Bucky and I were at the top of our game.  We’d gone up against Hydra together so many times and our luck had mostly held.  We’d taken a few hits, but we were dumb kids, we thought we were invincible.”  
  
Clint had refilled Steve’s glass and he took a swallow, let the burn ease it out of him. “We thought we’d found Zola’s base in Bavaria, but it was a trap.  We never found Zola — we were outnumbered and they got us with some kind of ray guns we’d never seen before. Next thing I know, Fury’s thawing me out and it’s twenty years later.”  
  
“Shit,” said Clint, shaking his head.    
  
Sam just looked at Steve, endless compassion in his eyes.  “And Bucky?”  
  
“Presumed dead. When they found me, I was in a facility in Russia, thousands of miles from where we had been. There was no trace that Bucky was ever there, no record of what became of him.”  
  
“They caught up with Zola in ’96 I think,” Clint said.  
  
“They did?” Steve sat up.  He hadn’t found much about Zola in the books he’d read, only mentions of him as one of the leading scientists behind the Hydran serum.  
  
“Yeah,” Clint said.  “Pierce wanted Zola to keep working on the serums with Bruce— Shield wanted more consistency, more powerful conversions, blending Hydran powers with Super Soldier strength.  There’d been a few stories like Sam’s, with Soldiers who were captured and converted, but Zola blew it big time.”  
  
Steve had had a few conversations with Bruce, who was always so calm and laid back. Like Tony, he always seemed distracted by his latest projects.  
  
“Why? What happened?” Steve asked.    
  
Sam and Clint looked to Natasha.  She shrugged a little.    
  
“Zola thought he’d made a breakthrough and tested his serum on Bruce. Bruce’s conversion was catastrophic, and Zola… Bruce destroyed everything in their lab, and Zola with it.”  
  
Steve tried to imagine the quiet, contemplative man he’d seen around the Tower with a death, even Zola’s, on his conscience.  He shuddered.    
  
“None of us has clean hands,” Natasha said softly.  “The Hydran serum pulls powers out of us that are very difficult to control.  I’ve seen Pepper set a man on fire just by Touching him.”  
  
Steve didn’t really want to picture the elegant CEO of Stark Industries, Tony’s beloved wife, warped by the heat of combat.    
  
“What about you, Clint?” Steve asked. “Since we’re sharing.”  
  
Clint looked back at Steve, eyes glinting white for a split second.  “I was running a con, got in over my head. Hydra took me, shot me up.  I woke up, concussion, and I’d lost eighteen months. Still not sure everything I did while I was under. I do know I almost killed Coulson. Natasha took me down.”  
  
“You weren’t a Soldier?” Steve asked, surprised.    
  
“Nah,” Clint said.  “I was a carnie.  Archery was my act.”  
  
“Good act,” Steve said, impressed.    
  
“Serum did improve my aim, but not by much.  Sometimes I go deaf.”  
  
Steve shook his head. “That doesn’t even make sense.  Intermittent deafness. What the hell.”  
  
“Said the Super Soldier,” Clint retorted.  “Nobody ever said the serum makes sense, why one version makes Super Soldiers and something slightly different makes Hydrans.  Nobody really gets what it is or where it came from.  When Thor first heard about the serum, he went straight to his little brother about it.”  
  
“Thor has a little brother?” Steve racked his mind for Norse mythology.  Baldur, was that right?  
  
Natasha sighed.  “Thor’s little brother, Loki, tried to start an interplanetary war that almost got them both banished.  But their mother wouldn’t let that happen without an investigation, and it turned out that Loki’s mind was under attack by a powerful enemy.  Asgard is on high alert, and that’s why Thor’s not around much, but Asgard is in open communications with Earth now.”  
  
“What does that have to do with Hydra?” Steve said.  
  
“Nothing,” Natasha said.  “Except that Hydra is all about mind control.  And, when Thor saw one of those Hydra energy weapons, he immediately recognized the tech. And the serums, whatever they are, reminded Thor immediately of Asgardian sorcery.”  
  
“Oh, nothing,” Sam parroted.  “None of that means anything.  Okay.”  
  
“Are we worried that this threat to Asgard might mean trouble for Earth?” Steve asked.  
  
Natasha turned her blank gaze to Steve.  “Thor says it doesn’t matter if Earth is worried.  We have nothing to fight them with.”  
  
Steve sat up a little straighter.  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” he said.    
  
“Well, we’ve got our own fish to fry,” Clint said.  “What with the registration movement.”  
  
“That’s not going forward, is it?” Steve said.  “Who’s supporting it?”  
  
“I heard Secretary Pierce is not opposed to registration of augmented humans,” Sam said with distaste.  
  
“That’s a violation of our civil rights,” Steve said hotly.  
  
“Men like Pierce,” Natasha said, “get to decide who has civil rights and who doesn’t.”  
  
“What do Fury and Coulson say?”  Steve demanded.    
  
“They’ll fight for us, but they’re not politicians,” Natasha said.    
  
“Politicians,” Steve grumbled.    
  
“Be good,” Natasha said.  “Put the right face on Augmented for the rest of us.”  
  
“Okay,” Steve said.  “I’d wrap myself up in the flag and sing the Star Spangled Banner if it would do us any good.”  
  
“I’d like to see that,” Sam laughed.  “And a little dance where you march around, Captain Smallass?”  
  
“Don’t push your luck,” Steve said, rolling his eyes.    
  
There was no point in staying up to watch the stars come out in the City, but a cool breeze did drift across Clint’s rooftop and it was nice.  The Asgardian liqueur mellowed Steve and he sipped it very very slowly. It wasn’t like the old days with Shield proper, when the Soldiers tried to party as hard as they could stone sober, yelling and acting rowdy to take their minds off things.  It was a more sedate evening, four friends on a rooftop, talking, getting closer.  
  
There was only one thing Steve would have traded the evening for — and he was pointedly not thinking about that.  
  
Natasha caught the morose thought.    
  
“Hey,” she said.  “Do you want to try a chain?”  
  
“What?” Steve said.  He had no idea what she was talking about.  
  
“A chain,” she said, grinning at Clint and Sam, who smiled back at Steve.  
  
“My gut tells me that when you have that grin on your face, I should say no and get the hell out,” Steve said.    
  
“No one’s stopping you,” Sam teased.    
  
“Am I going to regret this?” Steve asked Clint.  Heaven help the world when Clint was the sensible one at a party.  
  
“I doubt it,” Clint shrugged.  “But maybe you’re the kind of guy who enjoys regretting things.  I don’t know you that well yet.”  
  
“I am that guy,” Steve said, a little rueful, “but Natasha’s trying to beat it out of me.”  
  
“Do it,” Clint said, pointing at Natasha.    
  
She opened her eyes wide and rolled them at Steve, indicating that she was doing her best.  
  
“So what is it.  What do I do,” Steve said, taking one last swig of liqueur.  
  
The three Hydrans looked at each other and took hands, Sam, Clint and Natasha.  Sam and Natasha each took Steve’s hands, forming a circle.    
  
“Now we sing Kum Ba Yah,” Sam said.  
  
“I don’t know it,” Natasha said flatly, letting out a little of her Russian accent, while Clint smirked.    
  
Steve was starting to get nervous.  “What is it.  Come on, guys, tell me.”  
  
“Relax, Steve.  Just feel it, okay?”  
  
“Aren’t you supposed to get my consent for this kind of thing?” Steve asked nervously.  
  
“Do you consent?”  Sam teased.  
  
“I don’t know!” Steve shouted, laughing.  
  
“Trust me, this one time, okay?” Natasha asked.  “Not as Therapy. As a friend.”  
  
“Okay,” Steve assented.    
  
“Sam, you start,” Natasha said.    
  
Sam closed his eyes and that familiar warmth flowed into Steve’s left hand— but it felt different, somehow distinctly Sam.    
  
“Good,” Natasha said.    
  
Clint shivered.  “Mm, nice,” he said, smiling.  
  
“Hey!” Sam said.  “Is that mine? Damn, not bad at all!”  
  
“And you said you don’t have the Touch,” Natasha said.    
  
“When I’m at the table with you, I don’t need to set myself up for a fall,” Sam said.    
  
“Now you, Clint,” Natasha said.    
  
Steve immediately felt the boost as Clint added his Touch to the wave flowing around the circle.  Sam’s Touch felt like a friendly arm around his shoulder.  Clint’s felt like approval — like someone he respected had sized him up and said “good job.”   Happiness and contentment flowed through Steve from head to toe.    
  
“You’re all right, yourself, you know that?” Sam said to Clint, who just smiled.  
  
“Now you,” Clint urged Natasha.    
  
Nothing happened for a moment.  Steve was used to Natasha’s ways, how she carefully calibrated her Touch to Steve’s needs in the moment.  When her energy flowed into the circle, it rang through his bones in perfect harmony, like Clint’s sweet tenor and Sam’s smooth baritone had just been surrounded by a choir of basses, altos and sopranos, all singing in balance.  It felt like every good thing Steve had grown to know and trust in Natasha.  It felt fantastic, flowing into him, through him, all throughout his being.  It was far more delightful than Asgardian liqueur.  It was friendship, and Steve had been terrified he’d never feel that way again.    
  
Steve’s joy overflowed and spilled out into the circle. The friendship he felt was so good, and so right.  It hurt, because it reminded him of what he’d lost — but it soothed, and he had to celebrate that and send it back to his friends.    
  
Natasha gasped, but didn’t drop his hand.    
  
“Steve,” she said, surprised but smiling.    
  
“What?” he answered, happily.    
  
“Your eyes have gone white,” she said.  “You’re Hydran, Steve.”  
  
It was a jolt — a shock — and it should have hurt Steve to hear it like that, so sudden, but it didn’t.  Cushioned by the pure, sweet support of his friends, Steve felt like he could take anything.    
  
“Huh!” he laughed, and his amusement zipped around the circle like a little bird, hitting him in the face like a splash of cool water and making him laugh again.  
  
“Think we oughta bring this thing back down,” Sam smiled, laughing a little.  
  
“Yup,” Clint chuckled.  
  
Natasha carefully reeled it in.  Steve had never imagined Touch could travel between friends like that, layering and compounding and becoming so much more than any one of them could produce alone.    
  
Sam and Clint dropped hands, and let Natasha bring Steve all the way down.    
  
“Wow,” he laughed, still a little high.  
  
“Wow is right,” Clint said.    
  
“You okay?” Sam asked.  
  
“I guess so,” Steve said. “I mean, that was amazing!  Thank you, so much!”  
  
“Didn’t you have any inkling that you were converted?”  
  
“No!” Steve said.  “Like I said, they shot us and that’s all I remember.”  
  
“They must have injected you while you were out, and they thought it didn’t take,” Sam mused.  “I mean, when they did me, I got the empathy, and a little Touch, and ha, did she tell you I can talk to birds? — but they couldn’t make an implant stick.  You’re lucky they didn’t just finish you off.”  
  
“I guess they planned on studying me.  Or, maybe they did a lot of things and I just don’t remember.”  
  
“It doesn’t bother you?”  
  
“A lot of things bother me,” Steve said.  “But right now, I don’t care.”  
  
“I, for one, don’t blame you,” Clint said.  “Why worry about something you never even knew about?”  
  
Clint’s conversion meant that every so often he was deaf; Pepper had to be careful not to set people on fire; and Banner — whatever he did was so bad no one would even talk about it.  Getting happy and giving his friends the giggles wasn’t the worst thing in the world, not by any means.  
  
Steve’s life was far from ideal, but a clandestine Hydran conversion in his past was the least of his worries.  


	5. Steve talks to Pierce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes to DC to talk to Pierce about Registration.

“Are you sure you’re up for this so soon?” Natasha asked.    
  
“So soon?” Steve scoffed.  “I’m a lot better, Natasha.  I’m not an invalid, and I’m not a kid.”  
  
“And you’re not as calm as I’d like to see, and you’re planning on going head to head with one of the leaders of the free world,” Natasha retorted.  
  
Steve took a deep breath and tried to slowly let it out.  Truth be told, Steve had never been a calm person, even before years in the War had left him in a nearly constant state of heightened stress. Natasha’s Therapy had helped him find a new baseline of calm, and he was learning techniques to recover that calm when Natasha wasn’t around.    
  
If Pierce was going to throw his weight behind registration for all augmented humans, then Steve had no choice but to use his status as a war hero to try to dissuade the Security Secretary from taking that course of action.  Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t, but he couldn’t do anything less than try his best.     
  
The train from Grand Central in New York to Union Station in DC only took about four hours, and the ride was pleasant.  Steve spent the time staring out the window at fields and towns, thinking about the twenty years he’d lost. The world was more crowded. Communications were faster. Hydra had done terrible things while he was out of commission, and Shield had retaliated, dirtying their hands.  Hydra was no longer a current threat, but years of war had made the world a harder and more suspicious place.    
  
Between leaving Union Station and walking into Pierce’s office, Steve lost count of the security checkpoints he passed, cameras, armed guards, metal detectors.  Trading personal liberty for supposed increased security seemed to be the order of the day.    
  
Pierce was posed against the glass wall of his magnificent corner office when Steve was let in.  The Lincoln Memorial shone prominent amongst the low white buildings of the nation’s capital.     
  
“Captain Rogers,” Pierce said with a smile, extending his hand.  “I’m so glad to meet you at last.  Your service record has always been an inspiration.”  
  
Steve had run thirty-six strikes against Hydra bases after his conversion, and all but the last were unqualified successes. He’d been an exemplary Soldier, but the world had moved forward, and Steve was hoping he could help move it.  If people knew the good Hydrans were doing with Coulson’s initiative, maybe they’d be able to breathe a little easier.  
  
“We did the best we could with the intel we had at the time,” Steve said. He decided to jump right in with his reason for visiting Pierce. “Knowing what we know now, I can’t help but wonder how many of those Hydrans we killed might have been able to shake their programming.  Probably only a scant few were true believers.”  
  
“Hindsight, Captain. You did what needed to be done,” Pierce answered.  His face was a practiced politician’s mask — seeming open, but carefully closed off, strategically composed.  
  
“I didn’t volunteer to become a Soldier to kill people, Mister Secretary,” Steve said.  “I signed on because Hydra needed to be stopped, and the effort I was part of eventually succeeded. Still, according to the consensus in the the analyses I’ve read, we owe Shield’s victory partly to former Hydran Agents, like the Black Widow.”  
  
Pierce’s expression went a littler harder.  “Widow changed sides before Hydra fell.  Maybe she’s a precog, who would know for sure?”  
  
Steve tried his best to stay calm, but Natasha had done so much for him. Reflections against her grated on his nerves.   “Natasha brought valuable intel to Shield — locations, names— and she taught Shield how to deprogram unwilling Agents.  I’d say her loyalty is beyond question.”  
  
“Until the next time a more powerful Hydran re-conditions her,” Pierce argued, an insinuating smirk sullying his handsome face.     
  
“There are no more powerful Hydrans,” Steve said, his annoyance rising.  “The War is over, Pierce.  I came here to ask you to reconsider your support for registration.  It’s not fair to the converted to out them to the public against their will.  They’re just people, trying to live their lives.”  
  
Pierce laughed, eyes bright with fervor.  “No more powerful Hydrans? Is that what she told you?”  
  
“No,” Steve said.  “But I’ve met all the Hydrans in Coulson’s Initiative — Pepper, Bruce —“  
  
“Have you met the Winter Soldier?” Pierce asked sharply.  
  
“No,” Steve scoffed.  “He’s a myth.  A bogeyman. The pro-registration wonks dreamed him up to frighten average Jane and Joe.”  
  
“He’s no myth,” Pierce spat, triumphant.  “He’s as real as your Natasha, and he lives on the seventeenth floor of Stark Tower.”  
  
“Really,” Steve said.    
  
“Yes, really.  Ask yourself why they keep him secret.”  
  
“I’ll ask him myself,” he said.  “I’m not afraid of a bogeyman.”  
  
“You should be,” Pierce said.  “You should be afraid of any Hydran who won’t show his face.  Shield Soldiers like you can’t hide what they are — your enhanced size and strength gives you away.  But Hydrans walk in secret among us, reading our minds and influencing our decisions from behind their pleasant smiles.”    
  
Steve couldn’t help but think of Pepper, the elegant leather gloves and veiled hats she’d been forced to adopt after her kidnapping and conversion.  She’d made the best of a bad situation, downplaying her Hydran features with fashion and good taste.   She was the CEO of one of the most powerful corporations in the world, and she maintained that position while veiling her eyes.  Steve had the utmost respect for Pepper and everyone like her.  He frowned at Pierce’s paranoia. “If we don’t fight to protect every person’s civil rights, then why did we fight the War anyway?” Steve demanded.  
  
“Let me tell you a story,” Pierce said.    
  
By sheer force of will Steve kept from rolling his eyes, and assumed parade rest, trying for an attitude of respect.    
  
“I was captured by Hydra.  They tried to convert me, but the serum didn’t take.  They tried to implant false memories, but their Agents were too weak.  Nick Fury found me in time, and he and his team — Hill, Rumlow —  killed every last one of those Agents.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking he won’t kill to protect his own, because he certainly  will.  And I think you’d do the same.”  
  
“Maybe I would,” Steve admitted. “But you don’t get to choose who I define as my own. My last term of enlistment was up in 1995, so I’m a private citizen.  I know who my friends are. I work for Coulson now, free and clear.”  
  
Pierce gave Steve a hard look, and Steve saw that the Secretary wouldn’t be convinced.  “Coulson works for Fury, and Fury runs Shield under the auspices of the World Security Council, where I hold considerable sway.”  
  
“Which is why I came to see you,” Steve pled.  “Registration is wrong, and besides, it’s unnecessary.  The War ended five years ago — even I can see that.”  
  
“My duty is to protect the citizens of Earth from any perceived threat.  If I perceive a threat, I’m duty bound to act.”   Pierce’s eyes almost seemed to glint for a moment. Steve blinked — had Pierce brushed against his mind? He’d admitted that Hydra had tried to convert him — in reality, had they succeeded?  
  
Steve mentally shook himself and stuck to the topic at hand.  “You’re wrong,” he sighed.  “The Hydrans I know are doing their best to make amends for what they were forced to do.”    
  
“By conditioning Soldiers like yourself to go soft and cry for peace?” The scorn fairly dripped from Pierce’s unpleasant smile.  
  
Steve shook his head.  “I was a mess when I woke up,” he said.  “Jumping at shadows. Furious all the time.  Overwhelmed by rage and loss.  Natasha’s helped me get past that.”  
  
“Please, say no more,” Pierce said, a look of disgust on his face.    
  
Steve realized what Pierce was implying and wanted to punch something.  “She’s my friend, and I’ll ask you to respect that.”  
  
“Go ahead and ask,” Pierce said, nastily.    
  
Steve stared at the Secretary in shock. He’d never imagined a meeting with a friend of Nick Fury’s could go so badly.     
  
“I’ll see myself out,” Steve said, snapped to attention, deliberately nodded without saluting, turned on his heel, and left the room. Shaking with anger, Steve tore off the jacket and tie Natasha had helped him pick out.  His body temperature had skyrocketed; he needed to calm down.  He headed outside, hoping the fresh air would help. He’d planned on visiting the Smithsonian in the afternoon, take in the exhibit about the history of Shield and the fight against Hydra. Walking there would be a good idea —it would help him work through his anger at Pierce and burn off the extra energy.  As he walked he tried to remember the feeling of calm Natasha gave him with her touch.  It worked — just knowing he had a friend, and that the stress in his body wasn’t absolute, that it could be dealt with.    
  
The sidewalk wasn’t that crowded, but Steve was moving fast, and he bumped into a man coming out of a building, jostling him hard.  He reached out to make sure the man wasn’t knocked off balance.  
  
“Watch it, freak! Don’t touch me!” the man snarled.    
  
Steve fell back from the guy, stunned at the animosity in his voice.  As the man hurried away, Steve looked down at his hands — to him, they looked the same, but maybe felt a little hot.  He raised his gaze to his reflection in the glass all around the first floor, to check for Hydran features.  He couldn’t see any sign of a Hydran glint; all he saw was the body the Super Soldier serum had given him: tall, big muscles, strong broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist.  The man hadn’t guessed that he was Hydran — it came to Steve like a knife in the heart that the man hated him just for being a Soldier.    
  
Pierce had scorned the Hydrans to Steve’s face, without knowing that Steve had been converted after his capture. Now, he had to face the fact that registration was something that the public might want.  
  
Dully, he made his way to the American History Museum and wandered around for a while.  The Shield exhibit showed the organization in a positive light, which pleased Steve a little, but on the other hand, he knew the truth couldn’t be sugar coated if the public were really to accept both Soldiers and Hydrans.  The exhibit focused on the physical changes he and Bucky and a few of the other early Soldiers had gone through, and it talked about the mission when he and Bucky were lost. Steve drank in the pictures of Bucky, trying not to let the terrible loss overwhelm him.  His recovery had only recently been added to the exhibit plaques — he hadn’t been back all that long.   
  
As he skimmed over the paragraphs about himself, Steve recognized the propaganda machine at work.  Steve’s patriotism and his determination to take down Hydra were all over the exhibit, but it didn’t do much to present a balanced picture of who Hydrans were — almost always implanted with false memories, and only very rarely volunteers. And it made Soldiers out to be uncomplicated patriots, fighting for all that was right in a world corrupted by Hydra.  The truth was always more difficult than that.    
  
Hydrans deserved their privacy, all the more so if they had been made to fight for the other side against their will.  But so did Soldiers.  Steve hadn’t been out of the ice, back from the War long enough to realize how obvious his augmentation was when he was out among civilians.  If he could somehow disguise himself or hide away, would he?  
  
That made Steve think about the mysterious Hydran Pierce had mentioned, the one no one had told him about.  If he stuck to his own principles, he shouldn’t dig any further.  But on the other hand, if there were such a person, then Coulson and Natasha and even Tony and Pepper would certainly know.  Steve made up his mind not to play dumb; he’d simply ask Natasha to introduce them as soon as he got back to New York.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky pov coming soon!!!


	6. what the Winter Soldier remembers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter Soldier pov. He doesn't remember who he really is at this point, because the Hydran wipes and implants went so deep into his psyche. He won't remember until he meets someone who remembers him. This chapter takes immediately after Natasha went to see him in Chapter 4.

The little spider left his suite, wiping away tears, overcome by the memory he had uncovered.    
  
Memory was such a delicate thing, yet somehow impervious.  
  
It lay untouched for years, buried beneath the hardened quicksilver of Hydran implanted memories.  An implanted Hydran tried to know herself, but looking in the mirror, saw only what was revealed in the implant.    
  
Sometimes the mirror flaked away on its own, and Agents broke free.  Natasha had done this, despite years of conditioning and layers of implants.  But she couldn’t get all the way through to the original memories of her core self.  She had no idea who she’d been, no way to connect to those years.  
  
Much like himself.    
  
He looked into the mirror, and a silvery blankness looked back.    
  
He remembered her at least, and through her, a little about himself.  She was the one who had rescued him from them.  
  
He could recall the flashes he’d gleaned from her with perfect clarity.  
  
*flash*  
He is in an implant room.  Hydran Agents are ranged around him, chaining up to wipe him.  He is cold, empty, fresh from cryogenic storage.  He hates the wipe, and the implant even more, but it hurts so much more when he fights.  She is there, she is the beautiful redhaired girl, so young, but so close to him, so far up the chain.  She must be powerful. He respects power.    
  
He feels the linked energies of the Agents as they build along the chain even though no one is Touching him yet. He is tense.  He is afraid. He is so empty.  Why must they take what little he has?  
  
—the gleam of sunlight on fair golden hair  
  
— laughing blue eyes that look with love into his  
  
— the touch of red lips to his own  
  
— a fragile, long boned hand clinging to his, and love flowing into him with no need for augmentation  
  
— once there had been names, but those are long gone, beneath layers and layers of silver  
  
The Agent next to him clamps a hand across his forehead and fire sweeps through his brain, scorching it down to the mirror.    
  
Empty.  Blankness.  Ready for the implant.    
  
Lukin, so full of hatred for Shield, spills his vitriol into the emptied mind of the Agent, who has no will but the will of Hydra.  
  
  
*flash*  
The redheaded woman is here.  She seems familiar.  He thinks of Agents, chained to make him ready. He thinks she has been one of them. Where are the Agents today? There are always so many, chained together to hold him back.  He knows he is strong, stronger by far than any one Hydran, but he has no mission except the ones they give him. Does he?  
  
He could do away with Lukin.  He thinks it would be a good, to stomp the head of such a poisonous viper, who drips his venom into the Agent’s mind as into a crystal chalice.  
  
But the beautiful woman is already taking Lukin down.  Can that be right? Lukin arches away from the death she deals with her hands.  Lukin never had much power, only hatred.  The Agent cannot feel regret at Lukin’s demise.      
  
Little spider, he thinks.  So graceful, so deadly, threaded all around with the tendrils of her perceptions, the lines of her influence.  She pulls at him with her white glinting eyes.    
  
*Come* he feels her say.  *Help* she offers him.  *Free* she promises.    
  
He will go. She does not take his hand, but he goes with her. Away from Hydra.  He goes.    
  
  
*flash*  
They are in his new suite at Stark Tower.  
  
“Be careful,” she says. “You have so much power.  You could kill me with a Touch.”  
  
“I would not kill you,” the Agent answers. Not an Agent now.  What is he?  A man; more. The Hydran.    
  
“You can sway thoughts with a glance, read minds, maybe even the future.  Don’t.”  
  
Just for a moment he watches her future.  It spins away, and he lets it go, gossamer.  Now is more important.  
  
“Your eyes do not glint,” she says. She doesn’t look at his face. “They shine. Your whole face shines.  You have so much power.”  
  
She is yearning for him to look past her mirror.    
  
“For me to look past it would break you.  Let it flake away.”  
  
She shudders, full of sorrow at the locked box Hydra has made of her past.    
  
“It’s not safe for me to look at you while you’re shining like this.  Look at your arm.”  
  
He looks.  His whole arm shines with power, the hand he used to write with, when he was allowed such things as writing.    
  
“Don’t Touch anyone with that until you are sure it is safe.” He sees the fear in her mind, the screaming, hearts stopping, bodies bursting into flame, crumbling into gray, charred dust.  
  
“If I Touch you, I will be sure not to hurt you,” he promises.    
  
  
*flash*  
He Touches her.  The beautiful Natasha.  She comes to him with her sadness and he takes it away to exchange it for bliss.  Her ecstasy cleanses his mind, flows into him and out of his deadly arm, and bit by bit he recovers pieces of her.  She goes from him, but never far, weeping, sated, relieved, satisfied.    
  
He is glad.    
  
*flash*  
Her new client is a handful.  The Hydran sees him in her mind.  
* golden hair * blue eyes * red lips  * a strong, righteous hand * and a name. Steve.     
  
Tears roll down the Hydran’s cheeks.  He does not know why he is weeping. He wants to know.    
  



	7. Steve goes to meet the Winter Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes to meet the Winter Soldier, and the powerful Hydran remembers everything.
> 
> This chapter earns the explicit rating. 
> 
> Mind control is a thing in this chapter... there is a tense moment which might possibly be triggery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, I hope you will enjoy!
> 
> I have a ton more backstory now about Steve and Bucky and how they met in this, if you ever care to know! :)

“I’m not sure it’s such a great idea,” Natasha said.

“Why?” Steve asked, frowning.

“You’ve never met anyone like him,” she said. “You think I’m powerful? I’m not even close to his level. I can’t even look him in the eye.”

Steve nodded, trying to get an idea of what he was dealing with. “It’s not idle curiosity, Natasha. I need to meet this man, this Winter Soldier — especially if he’s as powerful as you say. I need to know everything if I’m going to be equipped to fight this fight.”

Natasha looked back at him, her eyes flashing. When she lay her hand on his arm, it was hot with power. He stood there, meeting her eerie gaze, feeling her Read lance inside his very being. It was deeper than he’d allowed her to go before, but it wasn’t bad. It was intimate, but that was okay, because he trusted Natasha: she’d earned his trust.

After a moment she pulled away with a sigh. The heat of her regard flowed out of him again, dissipating into nothing as though it were never there. It was strange to miss something you’d never even imagined was possible, but now that Steve had entered the world of Hydrans, he couldn’t imagine life without the Touch.

“I’m not a very strong precog,” Natasha said, frowning, “but I can see a lot of trouble in your near future.”

“What’s new?” Steve laughed.

“This isn’t a joke, Steve,” Natasha warned. She was usually so calm and sure, it was scary to see her shaken.

“Okay, okay,” Steve said. “I’m taking you seriously, but I honestly don’t understand. If you see trouble in my future, that doesn’t mean I can somehow avoid it. Whatever twists or turns I make, the trouble would be at the end of the path I eventually choose.”

“You’ve read too much SF,” Natasha said. “Avoid the Winter Soldier.”

“You’re just making the assumption that meeting him brings trouble,” Steve accused. “Maybe Registration is the source of the trouble, and he’s tied up in that but not the cause of it. Hm?”

“Maybe,” Natasha said, but her brow didn’t clear.

“Set it up for me to meet him, please,” Steve said.

“Or you’ll just ask Jarvis to introduce you instead,” Natasha Read, sighing. “You are a handful, just like he says.”

“What?” Steve said. “Why — how does he have any opinion of me?”

“He sees you in my mind, I guess,” Natasha said.

Now it was Steve’s turn to frown. “He can Read me — through you?”

“I don’t think so,” Natasha said. “He knows my work with clients is confidential, he wouldn’t trespass on that. He sees your echo on the surface of my mind— not you personally.”

“When can I meet him?” Steve said. “Set it up. I don’t like being an echo.”

“Jarvis,” Natasha called out.

“Yes, Natasha?” Jarvis answered.

“Please contact my Therapist and ask if he will see Captain Rogers,” Natasha asked.

“Is Captain Rogers requesting an appointment for Therapy, or a simple introduction?” Jarvis asked.

“The latter,” Steve said.

They waited for a moment, and then Jarvis responded. “The Hydran knew you would come. Please proceed to his suite on Floor Seventeen — he’s already granted you access.”

“Precognition,” Steve said, brows high. “I can’t get used to the idea.”

“He’s incredibly strong,” Natasha said. “That’s just a minor demonstration. Good luck.”

“It’s not like I’m walking into the lion’s den,” Steve said.

“Isn’t it?” Natasha asked. She kissed him on the forehead, leaving a pleasant tingle there as he walked to the elevator and Jarvis took him down.

The doors slid open and Steve stepped out. “Hello?” he called. “This is Captain Steve Rogers, I’m looking forward to meeting you.”

“ _please come in~_ ” a flattened, modulated voice responded.

He was seated in a chair, where the shadows were deepest in the corner of the room. Dressed all in black, he was swaddled from head to toe, and disguised with goggles and some kind of mask that hid his voice as well as his visage. His appearance was unnerving to say the least.

“My name is Steve Rogers,” Steve said. He wanted to hold out his hand, then second-guessed himself, and tried to recover with an awkward little nod.

“ _Steve~_ ” the Hydran said, his voice ringing inside Steve’s head with a mighty resound, as though the mask weren’t even there.

Steve staggered under the force of the Voice. It pulled him implacably toward the Hydran, and he found himself moving forward without even meaning to.

“ _let me touch you~_ ” the Hydran said, and Steve’s heart was pounding with terror. He was kneeling at the Hydran’s feet, and there was nothing he could do — no way he could resist. Why hadn’t he brought Natasha with him? Why had he come here alone, to meet a man without a name, without a face, known only as the Winter Soldier, the infamous Hammer of Hydra?

“ _don’t be afraid~_ ” the Hydran said, and Steve felt his fear drain away — even his own emotions were under the control of this fearsome being. Just being near him was like feeling the wind coming off a glacier — or the breath of a volcano — some immense, elemental thing.

The Hydran’s hands were thickly gloved but Steve could feel the heat of them inches away from his body. This man could kill him without even laying a finger on him — he thought he’d gone up against the worst Hydra could muster, but he hadn’t even been close.

The Hydran’s right hand came closer and closer to Steve’s face, as he knelt there, swaying on his knees, like a rabbit paralyzed by the gaze of a predator. Steve felt no fear (he’d been Told not to), but his mind was racing. Natasha had warned him. Why hadn’t he listened?

The warmth of the man began to seethe inside him. Steve was surprised at how good it felt, flowing through him in waves, calming him, soothing away the ever-present underlying ache from muscles constantly tight from hypervigilance. Steve groaned, without meaning to, letting it go.

“ _you have not requested therapy~ you have not given consent~_ ” the Hydran noted. “ _but I’m already touching you~ why~_ ”

“You tell me,” Steve mumbled. “You called me across the room and here to my knees. If you wanted my consent, you got a funny way of showing it.”

The Hydran still had not physically made contact, yet the warmth was already flowing through him much stronger than it had with Natasha, even after weeks.

“ _please~_ ” the Hydran said. “ _I want to touch you~~_ ”

Time stood still. The Hydran made no move. Steve’s heart beat on, and did not explode.

“ _I want~~_ ” the Hydran repeated, and Steve could feel the tell-tale rush that meant he was about to do something really stupid. Though he was on his knees, he could feel that the choice he was about to make was of his own volition.

“I consent,” Steve whispered, and the Hydran’s hand, very gently, Touched his face.

The black leather of the glove whispered against his skin. “ _so soft~_ ” the Hydran mused. “ _delicate, beautiful — how’d you get so big~_ ”

A shudder went through Steve that he couldn’t deny. “Please,” he begged. “Take off your mask.”

“ _that would not be safe~_ ” the Hydran warned.

“I don’t care,” Steve said. “Take off your gloves, take it all off. I have to see you.”

It was a crazy risk, nearly suicidal, but something inside him was stirring with a certainty he absolutely, positively had no right to feel. Twenty years gone, what were the odds?

The Hydran stripped the glove off of his right hand. It was a regular man’s hand, strong and square, and Steve’s heart gave a painful thump.

“Yes, Touch me,” Steve said. “Read me.”

The hand, as familiar to Steve as his own, hovered next to his face. Steve could feel the heat as the Hydran’s aura connected with his own, and then the deadly palm slipped softly against his cheek.

Steve pressed against it, overwhelmed, as the Hydran’s energy poured inside him, so alien and yet so familiar.

“Bucky,” Steve gasped, tears running down his face.

“ _who the hell is Bucky~_ ” the Hydran said, the mask distorting his voice, leaving his inflections dispassionate.

“Take off that mask, and I’ll show you,” Steve said.

The left hand, even deadlier than the right, reached up to remove the goggles, and Steve once more gazed into those beloved eyes, now shining white with Hydran power. Somehow, Steve found the strength to lift his own arms, and he undid the straps of the mask. It fell away, to reveal Bucky’s beautiful face, gleaming transcendent with the glory of his Hydran energy.

“Kiss me,” Steve begged. He figured, if it killed him, at least he’d die happy.

Bucky leaned down and their lips gently touched. Fire arced through Steve, delirious, glorious fire, as Bucky poured into him, through him, and began to recognize himself in the memories filling Steve’s head.

*Steve angry and beaten, scrawny and sick, dropped off, the Barneses' new foster kid, a fight risk and a handful, and Bucky, one year younger, open, innocent and sweet — leading Steve to their room and sharing his comics*

*Steve, way too tiny in his new JROTC uniform, and Bucky’s shining eyes, whispering, ‘Stevie, you look awesome’*

*Side by side on the bottom bunk, pressed together, just doing their homework — it had to be enough. They never kissed under George Barnes’s roof, but no one could stop them from dreaming.*

*The agonizing year after Steve turned eighteen and moved out, the dingy room in the student house where Bucky spent so many stolen hours — where, in that crummy room, Steve finally gave in and took Bucky the way they’d both wanted for so long*

Steve could feel as Bucky remembered, every precious piece that had been torn away slotting back into place. All the missing parts of Bucky were nestled away inside Steve’s mind, like treasures. Best friends since they were kids, secret lovers from the time they could understand what love was, comrades in arms, two halves of one whole, one spirit inside two bodies. Hydra had torn them apart, and now Steve’s stubbornness had finally brought them back together.

“Steve,” Bucky moaned, and then they were kissing, and Steve found himself pressed against the world’s deadliest Hydran, unmasked, ungloved, and the fire of Bucky’s passion rioting through his body.

“Bed?” Steve gasped, and Bucky lifted him effortlessly, carried him through the darkened suite, laid him down.

“Say yes,” Bucky said, pulling back for a moment.

“Yes,” Steve said. “Yes to everything,” and then Bucky stripped them both, and he was like an angel, or a god, shining with power, resplendent in his perfection. If the public ever caught a glimpse of this man they feared in whispers of the Winter Soldier, they would either stone him or build a shrine and fall to their knees in worship. Steve understood why Bucky had hidden himself away — not because he was a monster, but because he was far too beautiful for the human mind to endure.

Steve was used to it though. Bucky had always been perfection in Steve’s eyes.

As Bucky’s body lined up with his own, Steve could feel himself transforming somehow. Any place he’d been tired, he was now refreshed. Any worries in his mind were replaced with steady faith. The trouble around Registration loomed ever larger but so too was the certainty that Steve and his friends would somehow prevail in the end.

Bucky swept into his mind like a hurricane. The last of the Hydran mirror implanted into Bucky’s mind shattered into dust, and Bucky knew himself, and knew Steve.

“Please, Stevie — touch me! It’s been so long!”

Steve could hear Bucky’s voice clear as a bell in his head, as Bucky kissed him and kissed him, hungry and desperate, trying to get as much of his naked skin in contact with Steve’s as was physically possible.

“Bucky, I thought I lost you,” Steve mourned, letting his grief fall away. Bucky was real, alive — hidden away in the very same Tower with Steve all these weeks.

“Please, Steve,” Bucky moaned, and the Hydran Voice resolved in Steve’s mind, perfect and irresistible, but Steve didn’t need convincing. There was nothing he wanted more than to feel Bucky next to him, stroking his smooth sides, feeling his heart pounding just as hard as Steve’s was, kissing each other in desperate little nibbles, cheeks, chin, jawline, neck all offered up to each other, nothing off limits, nothing held back, nothing they hadn’t done a thousand times but so long ago, and every heated memory was coming back to life now like the best kind of dream, as every second held in suspension a pure, rich pleasure that Steve had feared he’d never feel again.

They matched, both bodies enhanced by both arcane formulae, and Steve’s artist brain couldn’t help but see how gorgeous Bucky was and had always been, his own body contrasting with Bucky’s — both muscular and strong, but Steve more bulky and golden, Bucky more sinuous and exquisite in his natural pallor. Steve ran his hands through Bucky’s dark hair, longer now than Steve had ever seen it — it brushed past Bucky’s shoulders, falling in waves, thick and silky around Steve’s eager fingers. Bucky groaned as Steve’s fingers touched his scalp.

*Remember?* Bucky thought, and Steve did, how they’d struggled to keep their passion under control, living together as foster brothers. No matter how much they yearned for one another, they couldn’t risk Steve being sent away. They allowed themselves that one, supposedly platonic and innocent touch, ruffling one another’s hair, but falling more and more in love with one another every day, they were so hungry and hot for each other, that the simple touch could almost instantly get them achingly hard. How they’d sat on the lower bunk, safe inches between them, Steve’s hand relentlessly creeping up till it found a home at Bucky’s neck, and Steve’s long, clever fingers would card themselves through Bucky’s short, thick hair, until Bucky couldn’t think and had to bite his lip to keep from moaning out loud, and Steve, to keep them safe, would have to leave the room for a while.

Putting both his hands in Bucky’s hair, Steve tenderly held Bucky to him, telling him with lips and hands and body how much he was adored. The love they felt swept back and forth between them in tides, compounding as the bond between them deepened. Their bodies felt like fire, like liquid pools of heat, sliding against one another, with every stroke a shuddering hiss of pleasure.

“Stevie,” Bucky moaned, “get inside me, please.”

“Like this,” Steve said, rolling Bucky to his side. Both of them groaned as they fit together even better than face to face, Steve’s heart pounding against Bucky’s back, the gorgeous swell of Bucky’s ass cradling his cock so perfectly, and Bucky’s delicious body open and revealed for Steve’s right hand to explore as his left arm was cradled beneath Bucky’s head. The shared memories glowed in their minds, the first time Steve had taken Bucky like this, after he’d moved into a place of his own, a crummy place, but all theirs. They’d waited so long, taking things slowly, in stages; reliving in their shared memory, the reverence Steve felt as he’d teased and slicked Bucky open, multiplied in their minds with the awe Bucky felt, being treasured so much — and now, as Steve felt Bucky’s silken heat taking him in once again, and Bucky’s cock fit in Steve’s hand, so right, the memories, the reality, the feedback as their minds and bodies united — they fell, together, crying out, through some endless, timeless realm where their unity was forever sealed and could never again be broken.

Coming together was like a waterfall of fire. Light shone bright against Steve’s eyelids, and somehow he peeled them open — the room was bright as day from the energy pouring off them. Heat and joy and bliss and love, a pure singing energy was somehow pouring out of them, and Steve felt the truth ringing out in Bucky’s mind, echoing through his own —the two of them were one, now, and everything was perfect: panting, sweaty, sticky and glowing like the sun — Bucky was alive and Steve had found him.

Everything was perfect.

Everything was about to fall apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave a comment and let me know what you liked or didn't like or think might happen next :)


	8. Natasha goes to DC

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky spend a few days celebrating, then Natasha goes to DC.

Waking up in Russia with Bucky long lost had been the worst thing that had ever happened to Steve— worse even than the death of his own mother, far, far worse than the years he’d spent in the system before the Barneses took him in. Even the fact that he had lost twenty years, while Peggy and Gabe and the rest of the Commandos had moved on without him, and several of them hadn’t made it, was nothing compared to the loss of Bucky. 

And now, Bucky was here, alive and well — better than ever in fact, since he’d recovered his stolen memories from Steve’s own mind. 

Steve didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to get up and get dressed or ever do anything again except lie there in Bucky’s bed, next to Bucky, feeling his familiar warmth, feeling his Hydran fire flowing calmly through Steve’s own body like a deep, rolling river. 

So Steve didn’t move. He lay there, staring into Bucky’s eyes, uncanny now, but still so astonishingly the same, and he allowed his fingers to have their fill of stroking Bucky’s shining face, combing through the thick, dark hair that felt just the same, though much longer now. 

Bucky was the Winter Soldier, radiating with an intense white fire, his skin pale as marble and glowing from within, his left arm ablaze with energy, his eyes gleaming blue-white. 

“I’m not the only one,” Bucky laughed. His easy, relaxed laughter was like music to Steve’s ears — so different from the muffled, modulated Voice that had been hidden away for safety’s sake behind the mask. 

“Huh?” Steve asked, echoing Bucky’s smile. 

“You wanted to go with Natasha to Pierce’s hearings in DC,” Bucky said, having easily picked Steve’s incipient plans out of his background thoughts. “No chance of that now, pal. You’re glowing like a firefly.” 

“Isn’t that you?” Steve said. “My conversion isn’t that strong.” His hand was glowing, Steve realized, though against Bucky’s bright countenance Steve’s glimmer was not as pronounced. 

“It really is, Steve,” Bucky said. “Or, it could be.” Bucky closed his eyes for a moment, and a packet of information unfolded inside Steve’s brain: Bucky visualized Steve’s Hydran potential, the way Bucky’s power had triggered it into blossoming, the way the conversion had changed him fundamentally to accept Hydran energy with none of the usual difficulties — the fire flowed through him without burning, the Touch calmed without dulling, and implanted memories bounced right off him. 

“But you controlled me,” Steve protested, remembering that inexorable pull that had brought him to the feet of the Winter Soldier. 

“That was before you took me in,” Bucky said. “My powers enhanced yours somehow. Even I couldn’t control you now.” Bucky grinned as he sent a wave toward Steve, that he cluck like a chicken, and Steve easily laughed it off. 

“Huh,” Steve said, wondering, remembering that feeling of shaking off someone’s suggestion. “I think Pierce may be Hydran. I think he tried to Suggest something to me.” 

“Alexander Pierce is a snake in the grass,” Bucky said, eyes flashing. “But we have bigger things to worry about.” 

“Bigger?” 

“I don’t know,” Bucky said. “Something big, coming down the line. Something really, really big.” 

“Wow, Bucky,” Steve laughed. “I guess the Hydran serum didn’t make you any more articulate.” 

“Punk,” Bucky laughed. It was so odd, and yet so completely right, to hear the words his best friend would have said coming out of the body of this godlike being. 

“Jerk,” Steve returned, but he couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss Bucky. Their lips touched, then they reached out and drew one another close, and their bodies came together and their minds yearned toward one another until they became entangled, and hours flew by again as Steve and Bucky intertwined themselves, closer than any two humans had ever before dreamed of being. 

===

“Sirs, I regret the interruption, but Natasha is inquiring after you, Captain Rogers.” 

Steve shook himself. They really needed a shower. How long had he been there anyway? 

He voiced the question to Jarvis. 

“Four days, sir.” 

“Four days!” Steve exclaimed. He felt a little tired, maybe slightly rough, but nothing like what he should have felt after four days neither eating nor drinking. 

“Bucky, you do eat, don’t you?” 

Bucky shrugged. “When I want.” 

Steve was agog. “You mean you don’t even need to eat?” 

“No,” Bucky said. “I mean, I do eat sometimes. It’s not like hunger… it’s more like, I need the raw material.” 

“That is so strange,” Steve said, frowning. 

“Why, are you hungry?” Bucky asked.

“No,” Steve acknowledged. “Not at all.” 

“I think the serums are magic, Steve,” Bucky said seriously. “I mean, have you ever heard of something like that, where a single serum — or even two similar ones — have so many different effects?” 

Steve nodded, silently. “I read up on the serum — the formula is actually not that complicated — but it doesn’t do anything unless it’s irradiated by a very rare element, something no one will name. How does that even work?” 

“No clue, Steve,” Bucky said. 

“Still just a pretty face,” Steve said, shaking his head sadly. 

Bucky tackled him and they lost another day. 

“Sirs, Natasha tells me to inform you that she’s coming in.” 

“Okay,” Bucky said, smiling. Steve and Bucky were still naked and tangled together. They hadn’t put on clothes for days, though they’d showered once or twice. 

Bucky waved his hand lazily. “There. Now all she’ll smell is an alpine meadow.” 

“How do you know what an alpine meadow smells like?” Steve said, breathing in the completely illusory scent of sun-warmed grasses and pines. 

“I don’t know, I just do,” Bucky said, and Steve dropped it. Bucky knew a lot he didn’t have a good reason to know, other than the Hydran implants he’d once been shaped around. 

Natasha strolled in. She was wearing a beautiful cream-colored suit —clearly bespoke from Pepper’s tailor — and power heels, and expensive sunglasses with designer frames. On her way to Washington, then. 

“Sorry to worry you,” Steve smiled, smugly. 

“Pauchok,” Bucky said warmly. 

“You remembered?” Natasha asked. “Steve — you knew him?” 

“This is my partner, Bucky Barnes,” Steve smiled. 

“Oh,” Natasha said, startled. “Oh. I’m so happy for you.” 

“Natasha,” Bucky said. “Let me Touch you.” 

Slowly, Natasha inched forward, her face slack with shock. 

“Pauchok,” Bucky repeated, and Natasha went to her knees beside the bed. 

“I want to remember,” she whispered, “I want it so bad. And Steve remembered everything for you.” 

Bucky reached out his right hand and gently stroked Natasha’s cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into the Touch. 

“We’ll get it back, Natasha,” Bucky promised. “We’ll get it all back for you. Now that I know who I am, I can be more human, out there in the world. I’ll find your past, I’ll get it back for you, I swear.” 

“I believe you,” Natasha said, her face pale and streaked with tears. 

Steve reached for Natasha’s hand, and when they Touched, he was surprised at how different it felt. Her energies flowed into his, now like a stream flowing into a river, and as he sought to send her a little comfort, he felt a wave of heat tumble through his hand into hers. 

“Oh!” Natasha moaned, flushing. 

“Stevie,” Bucky warned. 

Steve tried to rein it in, but he didn’t really know what he was doing. Bucky slid his own right hand between Steve’s and Natasha’s, taking over the flow, stepping it back, bringing Natasha back within the parameters of Touch she’d agreed to. 

“Wow, Steve,” she said, after Bucky had taken her all the way down. “I never dreamed you’d be so strong.” 

Steve blushed. “I think it’s still Bucky, not me,” he said. 

“Well, I wish I could take you to Pierce’s chamber meeting with me,” Natasha said, “but that’s not happening with you glowing like Moses.” 

Steve hung his head, but couldn’t help but smile at the thought that making love with Bucky was like looking on the face of God. 

“I don’t really mean to stay here forty days and forty nights,” Steve said, grinning at Natasha. 

“Stay as long as you want. This hearing is more like a deposition, so the World Security Council will have a record of my position on registration as a Senior Therapist for Coulson and Shield.” 

“Good luck,” Steve said, and gave her a hug. 

“Mmm, naked Steve,” Natasha smiled, hugging back. “Not too sticky, that’s good.” 

“I’m sorry,” Steve said insincerely. 

“No, you’re not!” Natasha’s face lit up with her honest grin, and Steve felt awesome. 

“Dasvidaniya,” Bucky said formally to Natasha, kissing her lightly on either cheek. 

“Paka, moy drug,” Natasha responded. The glow on her cheeks had barely faded as Natasha left the darkened rooms. 

The day was descending into the afternoon when Steve was drinking a glass of water and wondering how to invite Bucky to meet his friends who lived in marginally less secure parts of the Tower. 

“Sirs, pardon my interruption,” Jarvis broke in. 

“No problem,” Bucky said.

“Natasha has been taken into custody in Washington DC. She is said to have attacked Secretary Pierce.” 

“What?” Steve said, as every cell in his body went on high alert. “That can’t be right! Jarvis, show us what happened!” 

Jarvis showed them the footage. Natasha looked to Steve like an angel of righteousness, a modern Joan of Arc, hair like a crown of flame in the midday sun against her immaculate suit. Natasha approached Secretary Pierce, who held out his hand in greeting. Reading their lips, they could see him address her as Ms. Romanov, and she smiled as she said, call me Natasha. (Natalia Romanova had been Hydra’s royal, and that wasn’t who Natasha was anymore.) As she took his hand, he staggered and grabbed his face with his other hand, covering his eyes. A white, Hydran light shone out from their joined hands, and he shouted out, no! no! as he fell to the ground. Natasha just stood there, shocked, looking at the fallen Secretary, and Secret Service agents, three enormous Soldiers, moved in to bustle Natasha, unresisting, away. The whole train of events took barely twenty seconds to play out, in public, in broad daylight, on the front steps of the New Triskelion. 

“We have to get her back,” Bucky said. He was standing very still, hardly moving at all. 

“Is she under arrest? Can Tony bail her out?” 

“No,” Bucky said, and a terrible brilliance was pouring out of him. “No. We need her. Now. We have to get her back.” 

He turned and looked at Steve, and not even all the years of their love, or the days they’d spent getting to know one another again, could stop the chill from running down Steve’s back as he saw the look on Bucky’s face. 

“We need Natasha, here, now. Something very bad is about to happen.”


	9. The War Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Natasha is apprehended by Soldiers loyal to Pierce, her friends strategize back at the Tower, and Bucky reveals a threat no one knew was coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are links to songs in this fic. It is a bit experimental. This is not a songfic, but these are songs chosen to enhance the atmosphere of the war room. I hope they work for you!

Steve couldn’t sit.  He paced.  Clint lounged at the long conference table, drumming his fingers.  A sniper for years, he was used to the hateful mixture of high tension and crawling heartbeats that came with a bad situation.  Sam sat next to him, a study in composure.    
  
Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, stood with his back to the room, staring out the window. A faint glow surrounded him, but he was clothed head to toe all in black, with a visor and mask on his face.  Steve wasn’t sure why he went to the trouble of masking himself, when everyone in the room would need to trust him as an ally.  But he supposed Bucky saw it as a gesture of good faith, not to walk into a room with his brilliance proclaiming him undeniably the most powerful Hydran the world had ever seen.  
  
Pepper was there too.   Pepper was like Bucky’s opposite in elegant, light-colored clothing.  Steve was used to the long gloves that hid her powerful hands away in cream-colored leather up past the elbow, the shimmering translucent veil that Tony had designed to hide the constant fiery gleam of her eyes.  
  
They were waiting for Tony.  He’d been consulting on-site for Shield, testing out some defense systems for Nick Fury, but he’d headed back to the Tower as soon as the news broke about Natasha.    
  
Covertly, Steve eyed Bruce Banner.  He tried to look as calm as Sam, but didn’t quite manage it.  There was always something simmering under the surface with Banner, though how Zola’s spliced serum had affected Bruce was still a mystery to Steve.    
  
“Anybody play guitar?” Clint quipped.  
  
Jarvis unexpectedly answered him.  “If desired, I could play some music to help pass the time.”  
  
“Please do,” Bruce said, a faint smile touching his lips.  
  
Sounds of a string quartet filled the room.  “[Nothing Else Matters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-B8k0n_3cs), by Metallica, covered by the Finnish cello band, Apocalyptica,” Jarvis announced.    
  
Steve remembered Metallica from before he went into the ice and the beautiful melody was vaguely familiar.  It sounded like the passage of time and the yearning he felt for the friend who’d been unjustly apprehended by some faction of Soldiers answering only to Alexander Pierce.    
  
Now Steve, who had always been loyal to Shield — who had enlisted with Bucky in the early days of the Super Soldier program — who had been one of Shield’s highest elite, with an unmatched record in the field — now his only allies were a room full of former Hydran Agents. Maria Hill, Jasper Sitwell, Brock Rumlow, Ben Rollins — they were good Soldiers, loyal to Coulson and Fury, but Steve couldn’t be sure of their attitudes toward the Hydrans sitting around him.  Steve, too, had discovered his own, hidden Hydran powers, and now they’d been amplified by Bucky — but Clint and Sam had both embraced him as a brother when they saw him glowing.    He had learned to trust them with his life, and they were all dedicated to bringing Natasha back, no matter what it took.  
  
The beautiful cello piece had come to an end, and a guitar picked up.  “[Pearl Jam: Yellow Ledbetter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25j3aHL-sFs).”  
  
“Dude, I didn’t realize your hidden talents as a DJ,” Clint said.  “I approve.”  
  
“Thank you,” the AI replied.  “Fitting music to the occasion is something I enjoy.”  
  
The piece was relaxing and helped pass the time as Tony neared.  Steve had no idea what the singer was saying but the band sounded pretty good.  The opening reminded Steve of Hendrix, which reminded Steve of being a kid in the Barnes house, listening to his foster-parents’ records on their stereo set.  Good memories, all the better now that he and Bucky were both alive and together again.    
  
“ _stark is near~_ ” Bucky intoned through the mask.    
  
Steve hated it.  He wanted to rip off the mask and shatter the hateful thing against the tasteful slate floor of Pepper’s conference room.  He felt himself trembling with the pent up urge to act — to fight — to run toward danger — it was what the Soldier in him had been designed and trained to do.    
  
But he had to be smarter.  Together, the group of them — seven Hydrans, plus Tony — would strategize, and plan, and they would get Natasha back.    
  
A bizarre stuttering beat came on, and Jarvis announced, “[Bjork: the Hunter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7DRwOV3IZY).”  
  
The strangely accented words resonated inside Steve. “I’m the Hunter. I’m going Hunting.  To complete the mission. I’ll bring back the goods.”  
  
Tony landed outside the conference room on the pad at the top of Stark Tower, his suit dismantling itself as he walked toward them. Theoretically the landing pad would allow helicopters access to the top floors of the Tower — but Steve knew Tony: Stark had built the pad primarily for his own dramatic arrivals.    
  
“I thought I could organize freedom.  How Scandinavian of me!” Bjork trilled.    
  
“Is this a party? Is there punch? Pepper, did you spike the punch yet?”  
  
Pepper stood up and kissed Tony on the cheek.  Steve watched as the Hydran glow glimmered gently around the kiss and faded into Tony, how his eyes closed for a moment and his breathing deepened, and how when they opened, he looked so much more focused than he had a moment before.    
  
“[The Sky is Broken,](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+sky+is+broken&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb)” Jarvis said. “Moby.”  
  
“Thanks, J,” Tony said, his piercing brown eyes fixed on the stoic back of the Winter Soldier.    
  
“ _i appreciate your hospitality~_ ”  Bucky intoned.    
  
Steve gritted his teeth at the sound of Bucky’s mechanically filtered Voice. Everything that made Bucky human was drained out of it, and all that was left was the vibration of toned back Power.    
  
“You’re welcome, I’m sure,” Tony said.  He glanced around at the assembled group.    
  
“Um.  Okay.  I’ll just say it.  Stark Enterprises is not going to be seen to oppose Registration, and certainly is not going to oppose the World Security Council head on.”  
  
The Soldier continued to stare impassively out the window, but Clint sat up a little straighter, and Sam’s smooth forehead wrinkled in concern.  
  
“What?” Steve snapped.  “Why are we even wasting time here then — why aren’t we already — “  
  
“ _steve~ sit down~_ ” Bucky suggested.  Even with the mask filtering Bucky’s power, Steve found himself in a chair without even thinking about it.  
  
 Tony cracked an imaginary whip.  
  
“Like Pepper doesn’t own your ass,” Sam said with eyebrows high.  
  
Pepper tilted her chin in acknowledgement and Tony frowned, but blushed.  
  
“Uh huh. We all see how it is,” Sam said lightly.  
  
“Can we talk about Natasha?” Steve said angrily.    
  
“You’ll have every resource at our disposal,” Tony said, “as long as we have deniability.”  
  
Steve scowled, but he saw the others nod.    
  
“It makes sense,” Banner said softly, “for Stark to fly under the radar.  We don’t want to start a civil war over one man’s paranoid mistake.”  
  
Steve compulsively flexed his fists.  One man’s paranoid mistake could bring the world down in flames, if that one man was the de facto head of the World Security Council, he thought.   “Resources,” he said, “like what?”  
  
“Quinjet.  Weapons.  Intel.  Jarvis.” Tony ticked the items off on his fingers.    
  
“Alibis,” Pepper whispered.    
  
Instinctively they all leaned forward.    
  
“Yeah,” Tony said. “Stark will ‘employ’ you all at various locations around the globe. Banner, you’re in India.  Sam, you’re with Veterans Affairs in DC.  Clint, you’re in New Mexico.”  
  
“What’s in New Mexico?” Clint asked, interested.  
  
“Damned if I know,” Tony said. “Ask Thor next time you see him. Meanwhile, me and Pepper will be here in New York, completely cooperative about registration and bullshitting our way into the hearts and minds, talking up the Initiative, believing that this thing with Natasha is all some kind of misunderstanding and trusting that the system will work.”  
  
Steve frowned. He didn’t like it, but it was a good plan. What else could they do? “But Natasha,” Steve said.  “How do we get her back? How do we even find her? And what do we do once we have her back?”  
  
Bucky finally turned around.  “ _i know what to do~”_ he said softly.  _“everyone in this room, tony excepted, is linked to natasha~ we can find her~  i can walk her out~ we just need to pick her up, and then hide~ stark resources can help us do all that~ but we need her back, right now~_ ”  
  
“Why the urgency?” Tony asked, looking around the room.  
  
“Imogen Heap, [Lifeline](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_SqU-Ys3-0),” Jarvis said softly.    
  
 _“i’d like to remove my mask~"_ Bucky said, _"feel free to leave the room if you prefer~”_  
  
No one budged, and Bucky removed the goggles and the mask, and stood, transcendent, near the windows, as everyone gaped at him.  Steve rose and stood beside Bucky, at his left hand, the Power there still closely veiled.  
  
“Thanks,” Bucky said.  “It’s a little hard to breathe behind that thing.”  
  
Steve wondered if Bucky even needed to breathe, and he felt a twitch of humor ring into his mind through their link.    
  
“Wow,” Tony said.  “Pep.  He got the look.”  
  
Pepper nodded, smiling wryly behind her veil.  She was used to it.  
  
“Could you please hold hands?” Bucky asked.    
  
No one hesitated. Pepper and Tony held hands.  Bruce reached for Tony’s other hand and reached out for Sam.  Sam held Clint’s hand, and Clint held Steve’s. Bucky moved to stand between Steve and Pepper.  
  
“First, I’m going to bring our Link with Natasha to your conscious attention,” Bucky said.    
  
Steve easily took his hand and Pepper did so as well, without removing her gloves.  Bucky didn’t take his off either.  
  
A zing of power skipped around the circle, and the room sizzled with gasps and intakes of breath.  
  
“What?” said Tony. He was the only non-Augmented Human in the room.  He was a natural genius, pure and simple — though there were plenty of conspiracy theories that Tony Stark’s genius had somehow been a result of his father’s pioneering work with the serum, no one had any evidence that was the case.  
  
Everyone else could now, thanks to Bucky, feel their connection with Natasha: she was alive, uninjured but angry, and they knew which direction they needed to go to find her.  
  
“That was the easy part,” Bucky said.  “Please, drop hands.  This is what we have to worry about, and it’s way, way too big to send around a Chain.”  
  
Everyone dropped hands and waited expectantly.  After the pleasant reassurance of Natasha’s well-being, the trust in the room had gone up for Bucky.  
  
Then he showed them what he had seen.   
  
[There was an abyss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVJGh51wR7k): a yawning, empty blackness, bigger than any of them could hope to understand.  And through that abyss, hurtling toward them at incomprehensible speed, was a vast and mighty malevolence, cold and deep, explosive and wrong and furious at them for being alive.  And it thought they had something it wanted.  That greed, that avaricious hunger, burned them with its hideous breath.  They all shuddered as Bucky closed off the vision he had shared with them.  
  
Pepper and Tony leaned together. Clint was on his feet, his bow readied in his hand.  Banner was clutching the table, breathing hard and glowing weirdly green around the eyes.  Sam’s mouth hung open in shock.  Even Steve, whose faith in Bucky was nearly absolute since their reunion, was scared, braced and ready for battle.     
  
“This is what’s coming,” Bucky said.   “I don’t know exactly what it is, but it hates us, and it’s headed for Earth.”  
  
Steve just tried to breathe through the tightness of panic that threatened to engulf him.    
  
“This is why we need Natasha,” Bucky said solemnly.   “All of us — together — we’re the only hope against this thing that our planet — our universe — has.”  
  
 “AC/DC,” Jarvis announced. “[For those about to rock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKhTk0IynHM).”  
  
  
  
  



	10. Push

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Bucky, Sam and Clint take on the New Triskelion to get Natasha back.

 After Bucky shared his vision of the oncoming horror, the group around the conference table didn’t exactly break up, but the vision delivered a trauma that no one could get over right away.  
  
Steve, though, had his usual reaction to danger: instead of being paralyzed, he was jazzed.  He wanted to hop into a quinjet right that second and be on his way to rescuing Natasha — and he wouldn’t let Pierce, the World Security Council, Shield, Super Soldiers, the New Triskelion, or the DC freaking police force get in his way.    
  
Cooler heads had to prevail. Hot drinks were obtained.  Clint found a bag of Cheetos somewhere. Banner vanished, but Pepper typed out her ideas, Steve read them through, and he calmed down a little and reassembled his team. Within half an hour, Sam was at the wheel of his beat up old sedan, Clint was shotgun (pretty much literally), and Steve and Bucky were in the back with collars high, shades, and ballcaps pulled low.  They made it out of the city and were in the air in less than two hours.  Clint and Sam had flown together before, just keeping their skills sharp for Shield, so they took the cockpit and left Steve and Bucky in the passenger section.    
  
Clint’s flight plan took them to a little airfield in Maryland just outside the Beltway, and the jet touched down without fanfare.  Even though it was slightly out of the ordinary for such an advanced plane to land at a small field, it wasn’t unheard of for wealthy hobbyist aviators to fly through smaller airports, and the quinjet didn’t require a long runway.  Jarvis made sure there was no link between Stark Industries and the plane’s registration.     
  
Jarvis also had a nondescript rental car waiting for them.  This time Clint took the wheel, while Sam stayed with the plane.  This operation was intended to be discreet, but Clint couldn’t stand the thought of Steve and Bucky picking up Natasha without him.  
  
It was about twenty minutes from the airport to the Beltway and a little over half hour around the bottom of the Beltway to the New Triskelion.  Clint found the rock stations and alternated between them, and they heard one or two songs old enough for Steve and Bucky to recognize.    
  
“Here I am,” Bucky and Steve sang in their worst hard rock German accents. “Rock you like a hurricane!”  
  
“Come on, come on, come on, come on!” Clint chimed in.    
  
They were almost there.  
  
Clint stopped the car several blocks away.    
  
Bucky and Steve were already holding hands.    
  
“You wanna chain me in?” Clint asked, almost shyly.  “I mean, I know you’re both super strong, but my link with her runs pretty deep.”  
  
Steve looked at Clint with new eyes, feeling kind of dumb.  In all this time, with all his gratitude for Natasha’s friendship, his growing love for her as a trusted friend, and his awe at her powers as a Hydran Therapist, he had never stopped to question how deep her other relationships ran. Steve kicked himself, suddenly realizing that Natasha was never without the little arrow pendant around her neck.    
  
“Yeah, man, of course,” Steve said, and Clint reached back from the front seat to grab Steve’s hand.    
  
Clint’s hand was warm and strong in his, and Steve felt so grateful that he’d agreed to be a part of Coulson’s Initiative.  A lot of Soldiers had refused Hydran Therapy, but Steve knew he was immeasurably better because of Natasha’s care and kindness.    
  
*Natasha, Bucky called, and immediately Steve could feel Natasha’s presence — almost as clearly as if she were sitting in the passenger seat. He closed his eyes and concentrated on locating her in his mind.  
  
She was as comfortable as could be expected in a small white room with a mattress and a tap and a toilet.  They’d taken her clothes, and had her dressed in yellow scrubs.  She was barefooted and seated cross-legged on the mattress waiting for their contact. He felt her readiness for instructions.    
  
*Be ready.  We estimate ten minutes,* Bucky thought to her.  
  
*Ready to do what?* Natasha asked.  
  
*Walk out.  Push the guards,* Bucky responded.  
  
*No,* Natasha answered.  
  
Steve gasped.  
  
*WHAT?!?,* he sent, and Clint flinched back from the force of his reaction.    
  
*SORRY!  Sorry,* Steve thought, trying hard to tone it down.  *We’re trying to rescue you!*  
  
*Not if I have to Push.  I took an oath, and I mean to keep it,* Natasha thought.  Her next thought was directed at Bucky. *You know why.*  
  
Steve felt the echo as Bucky reacted to Natasha’s statement. He felt the memories of fear, hatred, excruciating pain, lancing through Bucky’s mind like white hot knives.  Natasha had been Hydra’s royal for years — one of their most powerful Agents, and she was wielded against the enemies of Hydra like a whip, leaving bloody scars in her wake.    
  
As a Therapist, she’d been trained how not to Push, but as an Agent, she had controlled scores of people in all kinds of situations.  She’d Pushed some as far as their own deaths. Hydra had forced her to commit crimes for which she could never atone, but once on her own, she’d sworn never to repeat her prior actions.  All this was right there in Bucky’s mind, and Steve couldn’t believe he’d let Bucky plan the extraction without taking this understanding of Natasha into account.  
  
*I’m coming in for you,* Steve thought.  
  
*Oh, Steve,* Natasha thought, in clear distress.    
  
Bucky just stared at him, pain and consternation warring in his eyes, while the rest of his face dimmed as he tried to rein back his negative reaction.    
  
Clint watched in silence. His first priority was getting Natasha back, whatever it took.  If he had to take on the New Triskelion, full of Shield Soldiers, with nothing but arrows flying, that’s what he’d do. Steve, as a Soldier, would be more inconspicuous at Shield HQ, and he could do no less.    
  
*There’s no point in me trying to talk you out of it, is there?* Bucky thought.  
  
*Nope,* Steve answered.    
  
*Ten minutes, Natasha,* Bucky thought.  *We’ll keep the Chain open, so you’ll feel him getting close.*    
  
*Copy that,* Natasha responded.    
  
“Will you try to keep this on the down low, for once in your life?” Bucky demanded.  
  
“Sure thing, Buck,” Steve responded, the lie clear in his overly chipper voice.    
  
“Shit,” Clint said, shaking his head. “I knew Steve was a handful, but I never really saw it till now.”  
  
“Son, you don’t even know,” Bucky said.  
  
Clint moved the car a little closer.  In Steve’s day, the only exit from the Triskelion had been a long bridge, a tactical advantage.  After the catastrophic Hydra attack in ’01, the old site had been made into a memorial, and paradoxically, the new building was on a regular street.  Clint let Steve out around the corner and drove on.    
  
Steve ambled through the front doors, showing his Shield ID.  No one stopped him, and several folks who recognized him in his civilian clothes gave him informal salutes.  He nodded and continued on his way.    
  
Natasha was being held on a lower level.  There was a Shield agent guarding the elevator.  
  
“I’m sorry, Captain Rogers,” the woman said.  “This is a restricted area, special clearance only.”  
  
*Show her your badge,* Bucky instructed.  
  
“I have special clearance,” Steve said.  The Push built in Steve’s mind as Bucky constructed it and rang out through Steve’s Voice.    
  
The woman flinched as the Push took hold of her, then she shook her head.  “Oh, yes, of course.  Ow, my head.”  
  
“I hope you feel better,” Steve said, gritting his teeth.  Pushing the woman left a nasty taste in his mouth, and a residual ache in his mind.    
  
*Get it now?* Natasha asked.  *That was your first Push ever.  Like it?*  
  
*No,* Steve answered.  *But I don’t have to like it, I just have to get you out.*  
  
Steve took the elevator down five floors and stepped out.  Steve could feel an aura around himself, one Bucky had built around him that indicated that he belonged there.  Soldiers strode past him and took no notice.    
  
Natasha’s room was unguarded. *For Hydrans, an unguarded room is more secure than one with a guard susceptible to influence,* Natasha pointed out.  
  
Steve stared at the door. He wasn’t a locksmith.  There wasn’t even a visible lock, just a card reader.    
  
*You’re a Soldier and a Hydran, Steve,* Bucky urged.  *Put your back into it.*  
  
Steve put his hand on the doorknob, put his shoulder to the door, and Pushed.  The door groaned and clicked open.    
  
Natasha sprang up and was by Steve’s side in a second.  She was barefoot.  It reminded Steve of their Therapy sessions, at ease back home in Stark Tower.    
  
Steve expected alarms to blare at the breached door, but nothing happened.    
  
*Incredible,* Natasha thought, as they walked calmly back to the elevators.  The deceptive aura Bucky had built around them was so strong that no one noticed Natasha, even barefooted and in bright yellow scrubs.    
  
*What?* Steve asked.    
  
*You Pushed the alarm.  I wasn’t even sure that was possible, and you just did it, instinctively.*  
  
*That’s my boy,* Bucky thought, pride and love flowing strong.    
  
Steve felt exposed, waiting for someone to see Natasha and attack them, but they made it back on the elevator without incident.    
  
Then the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, and Brock Rumlow got in.    
  
“Captain,” he said, nodding at Steve.  Natasha said nothing, but stood there, slightly behind Steve, looking at the wall.  Either Bucky’s aura would hold, or it wouldn’t.  
  
“Rumlow,” Steve said.  He didn’t want to fight, but if he had to, he would.  
  
“Shame about your Therapist,” Rumlow said.    
  
“Yeah,” Steve answered, non-committally.    
  
“My man Rollins was pretty fucked up, once upon a time,” Rumlow said.  “Natasha’s Therapy helped him a lot.  If you see her, tell her I’m pulling for her.”  
  
“Will do,” Steve said.  He felt like he was sweating bullets.    
  
Rumlow nodded as Natasha and Steve got off the elevator.  Natasha was Steve’s shadow as they crossed the open lobby of the New Triskelion and exited through the front doors, where just the day before, Natasha had been detained.    
  
Clint pulled the car to the curb and Natasha and Steve hopped in.  
  
Breathing hard, Steve curled across the back seat, pressing his forehead into Bucky’s shoulder, shaking with tension.    
  
“Hush, Steve, you did it. You did it,” Bucky crooned.    
  
Clint drove, eyes sharp and forward on the road, but Steve saw that Natasha’s left hand was tightly gripping Clint’s right.    
  
They headed out into rural Virginia, where Sam would catch up with them later.  
  
Something so much worse than Alexander Pierce and his petty prejudices loomed on the horizon, closing in on Earth with every passing second.    
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next: the Denouement!!!


	11. Earth's Mightiest Heroes vs. the Mad Titan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes into hiding with his friends, as they wait for the Big Bad of Bucky's premonition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit longer, but it has more action! 
> 
> I hope you will enjoy the Big Bad. :)

When Sam caught up with Bucky, Natasha and Steve, they were in the middle of nowhere, Virginia.

To Steve, the tree-dark hollows seemed like a good place to get lost, which he thought must have been the reason Natasha and Clint had chosen it. Clint and Natasha maintained a little cabin five miles up a dirt road, past several unlikely turns that were obviously seldom taken.

The cabin was primitive but pleasant. It was completely off the grid, but it had running water, a full tank of propane for the stove and water heater, and even a small solar collector they could use to recharge their cell phones. That was about it. Steve had never seen kerosene lanterns before, but he had to admit they threw a pleasant, warm light on his friends after darkness fell.

Bucky had scanned everyone for tracers (another of his nifty tricks) and they were all clean. Because his shielding was so strong, it was very unlikely that Shield or any of Pierce’s Soldiers could possibly find them. Every six hours, one of them would reactivate their Starkphone and go online to check a blog Pepper was seeding with coded messages. They checked in, then immediately sent the phone dark again. Going up against the World Security Council wasn’t something any of them took lightly, even with Stark Industries secretly on the lookout on their behalf, and with the world’s strongest Hydrans masking their presence in the world.

Deep in the woods, far from tv and the internet, phones dead — they were alone, and to Steve it felt great: a holiday of sorts.

Natasha was doing all right, Steve was glad to see. She was a little more reserved, a little stiff and upright at first, but she was no wilting flower. She’d been a Hydran agent; a brief incarceration was nothing she couldn’t get over.

“So Alexander Pierce is Hydran,” Sam said over a bowl of canned chili and minute rice. Natasha and Clint kept the pantry of the cabin fully stocked with canned goods, MREs, freeze-dried trail food, whatever was shelf stable, enough to hold hungry Soldiers for a while. Even though they’d long been Shield Therapists instead of Agents, old habits died hard, and they kept several secret places ready to disappear into at a moment’s notice.

“I think he doesn’t know it,” Natasha said. She was picking through an MRE for the tasty bits, and was loading up a tortilla with refried beans and salsa.

“How does that even work?” Steve queried doubtfully, around his second helping of beef stew.

“Same as it did when you didn’t know about your own converstion,” Natasha retorted. “I think when he went to shake my hand, he was just so terrified that he lashed out, unknowingly.”

“Unless he lashed out on purpose to take you into custody,” Clint pointed out. Clint had been the one who stocked the cabin with MREs, so he had been volunteered to eat the “chicken a la king.”

“What does he care if I’m in custody,” Natasha said. “Any way you look at it, he panicked. But hey, thanks for getting me out. Steve, I thought you’d like to know, the Shield soldiers didn’t hurt me, or even rough me up. They did their jobs and that was the extent of it.”

Steve felt a relieved sigh tear out of him. He’d been holding in worries he didn’t even know he had.

“Thank goodness,” he said. “And I’m glad it wasn’t that hard to get you out without even throwing a punch. That was a close call with Rumlow.”

“Rumlow,” Sam said, eyebrows high. “Think he could take you?”

“Nah,” Steve said, “but he doesn’t go down easy.” It would have been enough to get his adrenaline following, if Bucky and Natasha hadn’t both been there, keeping him steady.

“I think he knew I was there,” Natasha said.

“Really?” Steve said, eyes widening.

“Just a feeling. I don’t think he consciously could see me, but all the same… a lot of Soldiers have an instinct.”

“Instinct keeps you alive,” Steve agreed.

“But with the Winter Soldier hiding me, Rumlow didn’t have much of a chance,” Natasha said. “I’m glad we avoided a confrontation. The last thing I want is any more death or destruction on my hands.”

Steve acknowledged her seriously, and leaned in for a hug. Natasha’s hug was reserved but very honest. Steve basked in it, and after a bit he felt Bucky lean in, then Clint and Sam glommed on. The five of them group hugged around the crowded table, and even though the Hydrans weren’t chaining, he felt the love flow all around them.

Steve finished his beef stew and opened a package of MRE “bread.” He’d seen some jars of peanut butter in the pantry, and wondered if there were any jelly.

“Hey,” Clint smirked at Steve. “Party trick! Hydran party trick!”

“Oh yeah?” Steve said, on the alert. Clint was a trickster, but he rarely messed with people’s food. Sam and Natasha grinned while Bucky looked on. This should be good.

“What’s your very favorite dessert?” Clint asked, eyes crinkled in fun.

“Apple pie,” Steve said without hesitation.

“Of course it is,” Sam grinned, shaking his head.

“Okay, take the ‘bread’ and put it on your plate, and cut into it with your fork,” Clint said, eyes beginning to gleam with Hydran fire as he casually lay his hand on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve did as Clint said, and by the time his fork came to his mouth, he could smell the mouthwateringly delicious smell of baked apples and cinnamon, and the most delicious pie crust he’d ever tasted dissolved like manna in his mouth.

“Oh my god, Bucky, you need to taste this!” Steve said, holding out a forkful of MRE bread to his best friend.

Bucky lay his own hand on Steve’s and took the bite. “Mm,” he said, “delicious. Thanks, Clint!”

Clint took his hand away and when Steve looked down, the pie was gone and all that was left was just the sad little piece of pasty fake bread.

“Oh. Wow. Really?” Steve said, turning sad blue eyes on Clint, begging for more pie.

Clint sat back, grinning, immune.

“Try it on yourself,” Sam suggested. “Think of it as auto-hypnosis. We all used to do it out in the field, whoever was converted.”

Steve pictured the pie he’d just been enjoying, but he couldn’t see it or smell or taste it quite as precisely as Clint had. Before the serum, Steve had had a lot of ailments, including allergies that kept him so stuffy all the time that food didn’t taste as good to him, and what he did eat often upset his stomach. After the serum, life as a Soldier didn’t include that many instances of county fair champion apple pie.

Then Bucky touched his hand, and the flavors, the textures, the scent and the heat of the hot apple pie were so complete and perfect on his tongue that he moaned his delight.

“Dude, get a room, all right?” Sam complained with a smile.

The cabin was small, but there were two bedrooms and enough beds for everyone. Bucky and Steve took the smaller room with the bunk beds. As they stood in the doorway of the small bedroom, Steve couldn’t help thinking back to the days when they had first met, and first fallen in love — keeping each other at arm’s distance but never letting each other get any further. They dragged the two twin mattresses onto the floor and slept wrapped up tight in each other’s arms.

The next morning Steve got up at first light and went for his daily run, exploring the dirt roads around the cabin. Clint and Natasha had chosen well. The cabin had its own spring-fed water supply, and it was hidden from view in a hollow at the end of a long, narrow road. No one had any reason to travel that way, and as far as Steve could tell, hardly anyone ever did. It was good to be friends with people like Clint and Natasha who were able to see the best in people, but still knew how to be suspicious, paranoid, and prepared when the occasion warranted.

Steve ran a circuit that took him about an hour and saw no one in all that time. A few jet airliners flew at high altitude overhead, but that was it. When he got back to the cabin, Sam was starting to work on breakfast, whipping powdered eggs into an omelet with a jar of salsa to dress it up. It was like being out on tour in some ways, making do with what was at hand, celebrating ingenuity when supplies didn’t quite measure up.

“Damn, ‘breakfast drink’ never gets any better,” Clint complained, having emptied a packet of the stuff into his morning glass of water.

“Dude, make coffee,” Sam said, pointing at a can of sealed ground coffee, so Clint did, and as the percolator burbled on the stove, Natasha and Bucky materialized like cats scenting a curiosity shoppe.

“Bacon,” Sam murmured, in a wishful, dreamy tone. “Shelf stable bacon. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

“That’s where refried beans come in,” Clint said, picking out a can and pointing at the label. “Lard.”

“Ow, my heart,” Sam said, clutching his chest, but opened the can anyway.

Sam added the refried beans to the middle of the omelet, and Steve thought the day was off to a great start. There were paperback books on the shelf, but half of them were in Russian. Bucky got the thickest of those and started in on page one. The other half had been contributed by Clint, and it seemed like he had simply pulled the rattiest books he could find off a thrift store shelf, on the Skin Horse theory that if it was barely holding together it must have been well deserving of love.

Steve found _Palgrave’s Golden Treasury_ clamped at the spine by a binder clip, and set in. The serum gave him an almost perfect memory, so each poem, once he read it, was stamped on his brain. He could see the yellowed, flaking page, and the old-fashioned font, but he could also hear the poem as he read it to himself inside his own head, and his artist imagination spun illustrations — sometimes literal interpretations of scenes in the poem, but sometimes colorful abstracts that simply stood in for the feelings the poem gave Steve. He passed a pleasant morning with the poetry, but by lunchtime, he was more than ready to go back outside, if only to listen to the birds for a while.

Bucky came out to find him. It was a little weird to see Bucky’s shining countenance, dappled by light and shadow under the dancing leaves of the trees.

Steve smiled and pulled Bucky in for a kiss. They leaned against a tree, breathed and held one another, relaxing into the steady rapport they’d established. Steve knew where Bucky was now, how he was feeling — and if they put their minds to it, even what he was thinking. They were deeply bonded now, to the point where Steve could not imagine being separated.

“How long do you think we need to stay holed up like this?” Steve mused.

Steve could feel Bucky’s reluctance to answer the question. Precognition was such a tricky thing — so many factors could change the way events fell out.

“When we’re needed, we’ll know,” Bucky reassured Steve.

Steve had always been the type of person who pitched himself into any trouble, trying to do his best to help. Inaction made him tense and nervous. But right now, they couldn’t afford to be detected. By rescuing Natasha, they had put themselves on the wrong side of the law — but they all agreed that Bucky’s vision had to supercede the law. If Bucky said they needed Natasha by their sides to face the approaching threat, they believed him. Precognition was always subject to variables, but Bucky had enough power to see past unlikely futures —and he could often see what action to take to avoid undesirable outcomes, or to bring a brighter future into being. It was always a risk to rely on precognition, but with the horrors apparent in this vision, they couldn’t afford to ignore it.

Steve whiled away the days, reading, talking, running and working out, eating, sleeping, and of course, linking up. Five powerful Hydrans in such a small space could hardly avoid linking into one another. Steve and Natasha already had a deep friendship, and Steve and Bucky were lovers. Natasha and Clint had also been lovers for a long time, but they weren’t exclusive. Natasha had been Sam’s Therapist when he first came back from active duty as a Soldier, and their bond went deep. It wasn’t unusual for Sam to wake up in the middle of a Clint and Natasha pile, and he wasn’t complaining.

Steve had never really understood poly relationships. He’d loved Bucky with his whole heart almost as long as he could remember, and had never really wanted anyone else. But being a part of a Hydran chain explained a lot to Steve. He could feel Natasha’s warmth deep inside himself, Clint’s cheerful good humor, Sam’s dedication, positivity and unshakeable loyalty. He could see why the three of them slept together, even though Sam and Clint had both identified as het before their Hydran conversions. Steve had never asked for sexual touch from Natasha, or from anyone but Bucky, but he knew that as her Therapist, Bucky had touched Natasha that way. People liked to spread rumors about Hydrans and their sexual proclivities, but anyone who had experienced it knew better. Bucky had used his link with Natasha to look deep inside her, helping her uncover secrets about herself she desperately wanted to remember. Even Steve, with his limited experience, had felt the joy unleashed by a chain between friends. He was almost afraid to imagine what it would be like if the Touch evolved from casual to sexual.

After five days in close quarters, Steve found out.

Three out of five of the Hydrans were also Super Soldiers. They ran hot, they had a great deal of excess energy, and there were only so many miles of safe trail for them to run. Even Clint, who had only the Hydran conversion, got bored and antsy in the cabin, even though he spent several hours a day practicing with his bow — taking archery to a whole new level with his signature combination of speed, accuracy, agility, and circus trick shooting.

Finally Natasha put her foot down.

“If you men don’t chain up with me tonight, you can all sleep in trees,” she threatened.

“But! But!” Steve sputtered. He didn’t see how Natasha had authority to kick him out of the bed he shared with Bucky.

Bucky slipped his palm against Steve’s lower back. Clarity washed through Steve. Did he really want to keep to himself? If he did, that was fine. Was he truly reluctant to go deeper with Sam and Clint, or was he just nervous?

Did he feel that deeper Touch with the others would break the vows he’d made to Bucky? Steve felt a bolt of anxiety shoot through him — panicky fear and shame at the idea of impacting his bond with Bucky in any way.

Bucky led Steve into their room and locked the door. He pulled Steve down to their nest on the floor and held him close.

*I love you, punk,* he spoke deep into Steve’s heart and soul. There was no hesitation, no qualification in Bucky’s thoughts.

*I love you too, jerk,* Steve responded, worriedly.

*After all we’ve been through, there’s no way this could shake us,* Bucky thought.

*Of course not,* Steve agreed.

Bucky waited, a warm, soft expectancy.

*I don’t want to imply that you’re not enough, that I need anything more than you,* Steve worried. *And I don’t want to set them up into thinking that they have any chance at getting more of me than is free for me to give.*

Bucky held Steve tighter and massaged his tense neck and shoulders, soothing the muscles with Hydran warmth until they relaxed — something Natasha had done for him many times before they’d found each other.

*You have so much to give, you could never run out,* Bucky promised Steve.

Steve couldn’t quite put into words what worried him so much about opening more deeply to the others, when he had no problem with Bucky’s deeper relationship with Natasha.

*You still got something to prove?* Bucky asked.

Steve felt his heart give a jolt. He’d been a feisty kid, a fighter, on the one hand absolutely sure of his moral principles, on the other, terrifyingly insecure about his own worth. After his mother’s death, he’d been tossed about by the system, passed on from home to home who didn’t want to deal with his health problems or his developing attitude. By the time he’d reached the Barneses he had pretty much given up. Finding Bucky had turned him around. Bucky had brought light and love back into his life, and Bucky had been Steve’s reason first and foremost for everything he did. Even years after the serum had cured his physical ailments, Bucky had to call him on taking too many risks, just to prove he wasn’t weak or dependent.

Steve hung his head. His loyalty to Bucky had been his touchstone after he woke up in Siberia with twenty years gone. With his other team members so much older, dead, or scattered to the winds, his mourning for his lover had taken over his psyche. His adjustment to civilian life had been so rough partly because he was constantly furious about losing Bucky. And now that he had Bucky back, he was not so sure he was capable of sharing.

“I know what you’re capable of,” Bucky said, with a kiss.

“Oh yeah?” Steve said, kissing back.

“Anything you set your mind to,” Bucky murmured. “Stay away from the chain tonight if you honestly don’t want to link up with Sam and Natasha and Clint. But don’t do it because you’re afraid you’ll somehow fail them or me or yourself. The link can only go as deep as you let it. You liked it before when it was casual?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. He couldn’t help smiling at the sunny memory.

“This is no different,” Bucky said.

“It seems different,” Steve retorted.

“Try it and see, and if you don’t like it, run away.”

Those were fighting words to Steve. He’d been a runner before he came to the Barneses and he’d had to prove himself to them. He did, and he never ran again.

That night after supper Bucky and Steve went into the big bedroom, and Natasha and Clint and Sam smiled. Bucky joined hands with Steve, Steve with Sam, Sam with Clint, Clint with Natasha, and Natasha with Bucky. The men knew that Bucky had given Natasha sexual Touch before, but they hadn’t yet experienced a chain that deep with him.

*Since this is Steve’s first time, how about a chakran adjustment?* Bucky asked.

Everyone gave him their assent, so he lifted his hand with Natasha’s to the top of her head. Slowly, he lowered their hands, moving from the crown down through the forehead, throat, heart, solar plexus, belly, and finally the groin. The energy, which initially was cerebral, became more and more physical and earthy the lower Bucky touched, until Natasha was moaning in pleasure at his touch and the feeling was traveling around the circle in waves. Steve felt Bucky’s familiar touch in a new and wonderful way, feeling his generous, transformative energy making Natasha —and the others —and Steve himself —feel so good.

The pleasure caught like fire as Clint’s and Sam’s reactions fed into the chain. Clint felt Natasha’s pleasure so strongly, it felt almost like it was his own; he moaned and shook as she was caught up in the orgasmic rush. Sam too was in deep enough with both of them that his eyes had fallen shut as he keened and shivered, swaying in the circle.

*Now or never, Steve,* Bucky thought, and Steve jumped in, lifting Bucky’s left hand to the top of his head.

The energies almost seemed to erupt through Steve, as though he were a column of flame. As Bucky’s hand moved down, the fire grew darker, more intense, until when Bucky reached the solar plexus, it was as though every breath Steve took was Bucky (a familiar feeling for Steve). Bucky’s hand fed fire into Steve’s belly, and then slipped between Steve’s legs, tipping Steve over into physical bliss that ricocheted around the circle, shaking every one of them.

A long time seemed to pass before they came down. Steve hadn’t touched Clint or Sam or Natasha, not with his hands, but nonetheless he’d been part of their deepest passion. He knew their secret desires, their most transported memories: one more way they cemented their friendship.

As everyone struggled to catch their breaths and open their eyes, readjusting to reality, Steve had to apologize.

“I’m sorry I was such a stick in the mud,” he said. “You guys are the best. Thank you so much for opening up to me and Bucky.”

“Not every day you’re mentally felt up by the strongest Hydran in the world,” Clint murmured.

“It can be every day— I’m not complaining,” smiled Sam.

Steve and Bucky said goodnight and left Natasha warm between Clint and Sam, the three of them sleepy and smiling, cuddled up together.

“I never could have imagined something like that,” Steve said in awe as he lay down close behind Bucky. Their bodies fit perfectly together, safe and snug under the covers.

“To be honest,” Bucky said softly, “I’m not really sure what I might have been able to imagine, before. Being Hydran— I’m changed. I’m just glad you found me, so that I could begin to remember who I fully am.”

Steve kissed Bucky between the shoulder blades and held on a little tighter. As the Fist of Hydra, Bucky had been a slave, tormented and wiped repeatedly, wielded as a weapon without a will of his own. Even as a Therapist for Shield, so much had been taken from him, that he still hardly knew who he was. But now that he and Steve were together again, he had a chance to integrate who he’d been with the potential for who he’d become.

Steve felt Bucky’s contentment as he drifted off to sleep, the happiness deep in Bucky’s mind, and he followed his lover down.

The next morning at first check-in, Clint sounded the alarm.

“Guys, Pepper left a signal: soonest. Let’s roll.”

They didn’t need to pack. The plates and bowls were clean on the shelf. The sheets, they had no time to deal with, but if all went well, there would be a later, and if it didn’t, nothing would matter less than a few dirty sheets in a cabin in Virginia. They hauled out their garbage and hit the US highways headed north.

They were in New Jersey by noon, and were picked up by an anonymous black van being driven by Tony himself. Steve almost didn’t recognize him: silent, sober and serious. A chill ran down his spine as he remembered the horror looming in Bucky’s vision. What could have happened to shake Tony so badly? Pepper hadn’t given any details and Tony wouldn’t say.

Steve felt slightly alienated by Stark Tower all over again; it seemed so artificial after their time at the cabin. But it was no time to complain. Tony led them into the main conference room, the same one with the slate flooring and the big, long hardwood table, where they’d been supposedly “banished” as Stark maintained, due to differences of opinion about registration.

Tony looked grim as he said, “Jarvis, show them.”

Natasha gasped as she took in the scene: Thor and his brother Loki humiliated, kneeling in chains, their heads trapped by massive stocks. Behind them loomed a huge, angry being. Steve could feel the hatred pouring off of him in waves, even in the video.

“This feed is appearing on screens worldwide from a source in the middle of Asia,” Jarvis supplied. “Thanos, the Mad Titan: files shared from Asgard describe him as a tactical genius, dangerously megalomaniacal, augmented with telepathic, telekinetic, and mystical powers.”

“We got one of those,” Clint said, nodding at Bucky. “Except the megalomaniac part.”

Steve showed his teeth, a battle grin.

“Surrender, Earth,” the Titan boomed. “Your champions are defeated. You will surrender your objects of power, and your population will be divided— sacrificed to the honor of my beloved Mistress Death, or made slaves to serve our glory.”

“Or not,” Tony said. His arms were crossed, but his feet tapped nervously and his jaw had a stubborn, angry set.

“Quinjet,” Bucky said to Tony. Tony raised his eyebrows.

“Everyone on the Quinjet — you too, Pepper — bring Bruce along, bring everyone,” Steve said.

Tony nodded decisively, and in a short time, they were en route to Ürümqi, China, where Thanos had taken over an arena for his showdown. Bruce sat quietly meditating, while Tony shot him worried looks, but nothing went wrong. Steve thanked his lucky stars that Stark Quinjets were among the fastest aircraft the world had ever seen. He and his friends would challenge the villain, or die trying.

Steve and Bucky sat next to one another, holding hands. Everything that could have been said, they’d already said. Steve felt like he was one half of one soul — Bucky was intrinsic to who he was now, and really, who he’d always been. He thought about it sometimes, the concept of karma, or destiny, whatever it was that had brought them together, bound them so tightly, then tore them apart, only to forge them back into one again, stronger than ever, when it mattered most.

He thought about how Natasha had been inspired by Bucky to leave Hydra, how she’d gotten Clint out, how she’d gone back for Bucky and gotten him out, how Sam had come up with the idea of Therapy and how Coulson had brought them all together, how Pepper’s kidnapping and terrifying conversion had led to her unbreakable bond with Tony, the one thing he needed that his wealth could never buy — and how everything had come together, all the pieces in place, so that Steve would have caring friends waiting when he came out of the ice. All these things had forged a group of strangers into a team, bound tightly by bonds deeper than blood. The Titan wouldn’t know what hit him.

Clint was already announcing that they were twenty minutes out. Everyone was suited up and ready for battle. It had been a long time for Sam and Natasha — it felt like yesterday to Steve — and Pepper had never been a soldier, but her powers were too strong for Shield to leave her untrained.

Tony kissed Pepper on the forehead, his red and gold armor more fabulous than any medieval knight’s. Steve looked away as they made their professions.

Clint landed the Quinjet in an empty lot a short run from the arena where Thor and Loki were being held. Steve and Bucky took point, with Pepper right behind them, followed by Clint and Natasha, and Sam and Bruce in the rear.

“You sure you want me?” Bruce asked,worried.

“Yes,” Bucky said, and that was the end of it. Steve wished he knew more first hand about Bruce’s and Pepper’s conversions, but he knew they were strong, and they would manage.

They reached their positions without trouble. They could hear Thanos’s booming, maniacal laughter shaking the structure of the arena.

“No thunder,” Natasha frowned.

Steve realized that Thor’s powers — and Loki’s as well — must have been canceled out by the stocks the Titan had placed them in.

The mission had two objectives —secondly, to free Thor and Loki, and primarily, to identify and exploit any weaknesses in the Titan.

Bucky was confident, and this gave Steve hope, when, viewed rationally, the situation looked hopeless.

Steve gave Pepper the go-ahead, and she blinked her glowing eyes, sending the signal on to Tony. They moved inside the arena as Tony flew overhead, darting, weaving, firing on the Titan, and trying to avoid being hit by whatever bizarre bolts the Titan was throwing.

“Your weapons are useless against me,” Thanos boomed. “Once the Infinity Stones are within my grasp, this planet will be utterly destroyed!”

*Now,* Bucky sent, and they ran.

Overhead, Tony winked out.

It was uncanny. One second Tony was there, an obvious target against a cloudless blue sky, the next, he’d vanished without a trace. Steve knew Tony was still there, he felt him through Natasha’s link with Pepper, but to his other enhanced senses there was no sign Tony had ever been there.

Bucky was shielding them all as they crossed the open pitch of the arena.

Closer and closer they ran, as the Titan scanned the sky with increasing fury, shaking his massive fists and firing off bolts into the sky at random. An attack from seven small (but powerful) humans on foot was the last thing he would be expecting.

They closed in and linked up. Steve relished the feeling of Natasha, Clint and Sam, hot with battle energy, as their warmth cascaded through his body. Pepper’s power felt almost boundless: a volcano that reached to the very core of the earth. And Bruce’s energy was shockingly primal, raw and unstoppable in a way that Steve could barely relate to the mild, quiet scientist. He could understand why people went out of their way to avoid upsetting Bruce.

The chain took hold and quickly deepened. Steve felt the energy travel around the chain, building, unleashing. Bucky was reaching for everything they had.

Natasha and Pepper had Bruce between them, absorbing his furious power and chaining it — Natasha grounded by Clint and Sam, Pepper grounded by Steve — and they sent it all to Bucky, who was glowing so bright even Steve couldn’t look at him.

*Now, Bucky — do it!* Natasha sent.

*Almost!* Bucky answered.

Bruce’s thoughts were wild, incoherent — he’d unleashed destruction before, and feared himself more than anything — but now, held safe by the others, the power roared out of him, a deep, violent, living green.

Steve held onto Bucky with all his might, grounding him, loving the man who’d become the world’s most powerful Hydran — a weapon who wielded himself.

*Now,* Bucky thought.

Steve remembered hot summer days, long drives in the Barneses’ car, heat waves dancing on the highway. He’d always imagined that the black, shimmering waves, mirages, were gateways into another universe, one whose rules he couldn’t even dream of. Now, that shimmering energy built around Bucky, warping reality, building, coalescing, forming into some kind of singularity that no physicist on Earth could comprehend.

The Titan saw it.

“What is this?” he boomed, rallying toward them.

*Yes. Do it," Bucky suggested, and Thanos fired.

The shimmering, silvery ball absorbed the Titan’s blast, wobbling and bulging with chaotic force.

Then Bucky pushed, and the ball shot toward the great enemy, striking him directly in the forehead.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then Steve saw silvery lines, almost like quicksilver, running all over the gigantic being in wriggling zigzags. The silvery lines turned fiery red, and then black, and the Titan roared in agony as searing lines of energy cut him, seared him, slashed his being into threads. The chasms, silver-red-black, deepened and spread, and the Titan collapsed. Green fire danced from the deepest gashes, as their chained and multiplied energies pulled the being apart.

With one final howl, the Titan expired. A huge, multicolored blast enveloped him in a sphere of energy, pulsing, pulsing, until it collapsed into a point and vanished. The Titan was entirely eradicated. Not a trace remained.

Steve let out a whoop of victory. He didn’t even feel tired! His exhilaration rushed around the chain, a thrill of giddy joy. Broad smiles broke out on every face — even Bruce was laughing. They had done it. They really, truly, had saved the world.

“A little help?” Loki called.

Bruce dropped Natasha’s and Pepper’s hand and strode over to the fettered Asgardians. Lifting his fist, he shattered the stocks, first Loki’s, then Thor’s.

“Thanks, friend!” Thor smiled, shaking out his neck as he stood, and pulled his brother to his feet.

“Rejoice!” Thor shouted, beaming at them all. “Thanos, the Mad Titan, is fallen at last! This mighty deed will be sung in story throughout the Nine Realms!”

“Can you leave the ‘bait’ part out of it?” Loki grumbled, rubbing his neck.

Thor’s big hand came down on Loki’s shoulder, pulling him closer.

“Excellent strategy merits a hero’s reward, no less than a valorous blow!” Thor proclaimed. Loki smiled.

Tony took that opportunity to land, repulsors on full, next to the crowd.

“How hot is my wife?” he demanded from everyone. “Incredibly hot!” he answered, and kissing Pepper’s beautiful, glowing face and sweeping her back to the Quinjet before anyone could move.

Steve wasn’t sure quite what to do next. The Titan Thanos was evil on a universal scale, a threat that kept Asgard on red alert at the merest hint of his approach, and Steve’s handful of friends had taken him down. Clint called Coulson to bring him up to speed — only to find that the whole world had witnessed the team of Hydrans crushing the Titan in glorious simulcast.

“Take your time,” Coulson told Clint with a broad smile. “You’ve earned it. Go somewhere nice — Fiji. Tahiti. Take a load off. Director Fury and I will make sure the World Security Council knows exactly how much it owes to our augmented Heroes.”

“Thank you, sir,” Steve said firmly, and Coulson coughed.

“You’re more than welcome,” he said. “And I’m so glad to hear you’ve reunited with Sergeant Barnes. I hope the two of you will sign my Commandos trading cards — I’ve got a mint set.”

*Commandos trading cards? Bucky thought, with a hint of alarm. Facing down intergalactic juggernauts was one thing, but fanboys were another.

“Certainly, sir — we can’t wait,” Steve smiled, Bucky mentally stomping his toes.

“Palm trees,” Clint said, rubbing his hands eagerly.

“Drinks served in coconuts,” Sam agreed.

They looked at Natasha. “Bikinis,” they said in unison, just to see her smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanos is a crazy character -- I hope you enjoyed how I handled him. 
> 
> Your comments mean so much! 
> 
> One chapter to go! :D


	12. Tahiti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relaxation in a tropical paradise, and the final secret revealed.

“This is unreal,” Steve said for the millionth time, gazing out over the fantasy dreamscape that was the coast of Tahiti.   
  
Steve knew Coulson had connections, so he didn’t doubt that the co-director of Shield could scrounge transport and accommodations for a paradise vacation for half a dozen agents in need of R&R, but it turned out that one of Tony’s several yachts was already anchored at Papeete. So they were cruising through French Polynesia (was it still French? Steve wasn’t quite sure), on Stark’s private, fully staffed, hundred-plus foot yacht.    
  
“White sand, crystal waters, Natasha in a bikini,” Bucky mused, clinking his bottle with Steve. Thor and Loki had promised them a lifetime supply of Asgardian mead and ales — the least the Midgardian heroes deserved after ridding the universe of Thanos— and the Soldiers were already enjoying the benefits.   
  
Natasha did have on a hot pink bikini, a wide-brimmed hat, big sunglasses, and a brightly flowered sarong around her hips. She lay back in her deck chair, read her book, and pretended not to hear them, but Steve could see the quiver of a smile in her nonchalant expression.    
  
Clint, and sometimes Sam, showed up on the hour to reapply sunscreen to their redheaded lady, and she accepted their devotions with grace.  Pepper, also extremely fair skinned and prone to freckles, stayed below decks, but it was lovely to see her when she did emerge into the sunshine without the gloves and veil that she’d always worn outside her home in Stark Tower. Since the dramatic events of Thanos’s defeat, Pepper’s extreme level of Hydran power was once again before the public eye, but this time, she and Tony had decided not to hide her shine any more. Steve was proud to have played his part alongside his friends in taking down the Titan, but it also gave him a great deal of personal satisfaction that he had helped prove that they all deserved the world’s respect for their decisive victory against a foe that threatened humankind’s very existence.  
   
Steve had once had the passing thought that if Bucky were ever to be seen outside his quarters, without the armor that cloaked and partially dampened his Hydran fire, he ran the risk of being mistaken for a god.  Now he and Steve and their friends had actually saved the lives of two Asgardians.  Steve did not think Thor and Loki were gods, but they had in fact been worshipped as such.  Steve wasn’t interested in anyone’s misplaced worship, but he did think the respect was long overdue.   
  
Coulson was doing a fantastic job handling the press and the politicians.  Samantha Street, a Pulitzer winning reporter from the New York Tribune, interviewed them remotely while they were on the plane to Tahiti, each of them telling the story of how they’d come to work for Shield, how their conversions had affected them, and what it felt like to defeat the Mad Titan.   
  
Bruce had been especially forthcoming.  “For so long, I’ve seen my conversion as a curse, like there was some kind of monster inside me that I was constantly fighting to hold back.  But going up against the Titan, holding back wasn’t an option.  I had to let it go.  And my friends were there with me — and I helped them win after being so pent up for so long.  I helped save the world.  There’s a sense of relief, and I’m glad of course that we met the threat and stopped it, but also a sense of profound gratitude, that maybe now the world has a place in it for someone like me.”   
  
Bruce’s interview made for excellent soundbites, but it was genuine, and they all knew exactly how Bruce felt, Steve included.   
  
The World Security Council had retracted their proposition for the Registration Act almost immediately after the battle, and Pierce had nothing more to say about it.  Perhaps he’d eventually come to realize that the only Hydran who had attacked when he shook hands with Natasha had been himself.  Steve still felt angry and disgusted when he thought too hard about Pierce, but he just hoped he wouldn’t have to work too closely or too often with the Secretary.   
  
By mutual agreement, they all took it easy for a few days: sunning on the deck of Tony’s yacht, swimming in the pristine waters, chilling out together in the yacht’s movie theater, feasting, drinking, dancing in the big stateroom. Swaying in Bucky’s arms (Steve always let Bucky lead, force of habit from before the serum when he’d been so much smaller), Steve couldn’t imagine life getting much better.    
  
Natasha pulled down her sunglasses, smirking at Steve with a white flash of her eyes.  “You are so smug I can feel it all the way over here.”  
  
“Smug?” Steve protested, but Bucky interrupted.   
  
“Damn straight! He has every right to be smug.  He’s on the best team in the world, and his boyfriend is handsome as hell.”  Bucky grinned brightly.  Since the battle, he’d learned to tone down his Hydran shine, but there was still an otherworldly gleam to his face and especially his left hand and arm.  Steve didn’t even really notice it anymore — all he could see was the man he’d fallen in love with when they were still just boys.   To Steve, Bucky was the best looking guy in the world, with or without his Hydran fire. To Steve, Bucky was everything.    
  
Natasha rolled her eyes, but smiled and went back to her reading.    
  
Bucky stood up and pulled Steve to his feet.  “I think I misplaced something in our cabin that I need Steve to help me find,” Bucky said.    
  
“Your subtlety,” Natasha snarked, grinning.  Bucky kissed her on the top of the head, and led the blushing Steve below decks.    
  
Upon first finding one another, they’d spent days reestablishing their bond, getting as close to each other as they could get.  Now, that bond was unassailable.  Steve didn’t look at the world through Bucky’s eyes, but he could have if he’d wanted to.  The heights of pleasure they could give one another were astonishing.  They’d had to learn how to put up mental barriers so as not to distract everyone around them with the powerful psychic echoes of their intimacy.   
  
As soon as the door to their cabin shut, Bucky was shucking Steve out of his clothes, and Steve was laughing and trying to close off the mental channels he’d developed with his friends, while at the same time, running through the disciplines he’d learned to calm any accidental broadcasts.    
  
“Very good,” Bucky said, nuzzling his neck while reinforcing Steve’s mental efforts.    
  
“Good teacher,” Steve acknowledged, tilting his head to give Bucky more access.    
  
Naked, they held each other tight, kissing, their human heat warming each other.  With their minds in such perfect harmony, it surprised Steve every time that his body still felt so much hunger for Bucky.  Whenever Bucky held him, he felt warm and safe and loved, but he also felt excited and ravenous and edgy with desire — eager to touch and be touched, to lie down and be whatever Bucky wanted.     
  
“Let me open you up,” Bucky murmured, and Steve dropped facedown onto the bed.    
  
“Mmm,” Bucky said, caressing Steve’s ass.  “Perfect.”   
  
“Serum perfect,” Steve grumbled.    
  
“Nah — your ass was always perfect,” Bucky asserted.  “And I always wanted to grab it,” he said, demonstrating, “and maybe bite it.”   
  
Steve flinched but Bucky was already playfully nipping at Steve’s round, muscular butt.    
  
“Then, right here, it’s just so sweet — so soft, and tender, hidden, and waiting for me,” Bucky said, stroking his finger between Steve’s cheeks.  Steve squirmed a little and spread his legs wider.  He wanted Bucky inside him, but the wait held a pleasant, lingering tension.    
  
Bucky eased a slick finger inside Steve, and Steve groaned at the uneasy, gorgeous feeling — so many nerve endings shouting _yes_ , while his instincts went awry at the feeling of something pressing in.  Two fingers was still a little tight, but Bucky was kissing him, sloppy and hungry, and Steve urged his body to relax, bearing down and giving in.  It made Steve remember the first time he’d let Bucky inside him: Bucky going so slow, using more lube than anyone could possibly need, feeling inside Steve for the place that would make him lose it, and Steve arching up with a shout, cursing at Bucky to hurry up!  
  
The memory, shared between them, sang like crystal inside their heads. They found themselves echoing some of their old moves — even though Steve was twice the size he’d been before the serum, and they were no longer awkward teenagers figuring out how to touch each other in the heat of passion.     
  
Bucky slid inside Steve with a groan. *Always so good,* he thought, and Steve shoved back just to hear Bucky gasp.  The link doubled every sensation, feeding it back: Steve felt Bucky sliding inside him, the stretch and burn, but he also felt Bucky clinched in his own tight heat… Bucky knew every zing of pleasure running up Steve’s spine, and Steve reveled in the pride Bucky felt at giving Steve such bliss.   They went slow, doing it right, every touch steeped in adoration.  They loved to get deep inside each other, so deep the outside world utterly fell away.   
  
*Mine, Stevie!* Bucky’s whole being seemed to cry as he lost himself in Steve.    
  
*Yes!* Steve answered, as his body shuddered around Bucky’s.    
  
They seemed to float in a timeless place for a long, wonderful moment — two bright souls basking in the unity they’d forged.    
  
And then they crashed back down into their bodies. Laughing and sweaty, they lay in a heap in Tony Stark’s yacht, floating somewhere in the paradise of the South Pacific.    
  
“Did you ever think we’d end up like this?” Steve asked, after he caught his breath.     
  
Bucky smiled.  “To be honest? Yeah. I always knew. Maybe I sent myself a message.”   
  
Steve remembered their first meeting: Bucky’s gentle kindness to a scared, angry stranger.  Somehow, Bucky had known that little punk was the other part of his soul.   
  
“Huh,” Steve said.  Stranger things had happened.   He held onto Bucky tighter, and let himself fall into a peaceful rest.    
  
In his dream he looked at Bucky, and he saw a being of silver white fire inside his friend — the true reality of who and what Bucky had become.  He could see a silver cord linking Bucky to himself, strong and thick, a mighty chain.  Then he noticed other cords: heavy lines led from Steve and Bucky to Natasha, who glowed with a vibrant fire.  Strands of bright light linked her to Clint and Sam.  Threads led to all their friends, to the mighty, shining beings hidden away inside their physical bodies.    
  
Steve saw them harness their power, linking themselves to defeat the Titan, and he saw a cord entwining them all that led far away. Curious, he followed the cord, down into the past, back to their conversions, back to a magical stone:  the Infinity Stone the Titan had sought, a fragment of Creation itself.  It had seeded its power into Soldiers and Agents, changing them with its magic, building up an army to defend the planet where the Stone rested.    
  
Steve saw the threads linking him and Bucky to the Stone, thick and vibrant and alive.  More power continuously fed into them from the Stone, and the more they used it, the easier it became.  Steve was no precog, but he saw: they would become like gods.  Perhaps something similar had happened in Asgard, and this was how it began on Earth.   
  
Steve fell deeper into his dream.  Bucky was warm beside him, and he snuggled in, and held on tight.  Bucky was all he was really sure of, and all he needed to know.    
  
   
  



	13. Natasha has a mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Natasha go to Irkutsk on an important fact finding mission.

 Natasha wanted to imagine a long train ride through the fabled birch forests, followed by some sort of narrow road that wound to her final destination.  She wanted to think that there might be an old wooden house, surrounded by forests, a kind older woman in a fine embroidered apron, and a big kitchen full of food preserved against the long Siberian winter.  
  
But fairy tales were for children.  Clint offered to fly her to Irkutsk in the quinjet, and she gratefully accepted.  There was no way to avoid the fact that Siberia was on the other side of the world from New York City, and it was good to have private access to supersonic travel.    
  
Clint walked with Natasha through the pleasant streets of old Irkutsk, its beautiful nineteenth-century buildings and wide Soviet plazas.    
  
He watched her closely and didn’t ask if anything rang a bell.  He held her hand, solid, loving, and they walked.    
  
He found a coffee shop near their destination, gave her a kiss for luck and took a corner seat.  She caught up his hand and pressed one of his fingers across the tiny arrow that clung to her throat.   He sent a pulse of warmth through her hand, a warmth she knew so well.  
  
“Thanks,” she said, and kissed him lightly. She felt Clint’s admiration of her confident stride as he watched her walk away, and tried to laugh at her fear.    
  
She found the building, the apartment.  She held her breath, let it out.  She knocked.    
  
The wait was interminable, and then the door opened.    
  
After Bucky had scried the location, Coulson had put three of his best people to work running checks.   Natasha had already read the dossier and looked at the pictures. She’d opened correspondence by email.  They’d even spoken by phone.  
  
Nothing could prepare Natasha for the reality of standing face to face with her mother.    
  
Her Hydran senses flashed and she tried to get herself under control.  She could feel Clint, calm and steady back at the coffee shop, breathing deep and centered for her.  She could even feel Steve and Bucky, all the way around the world — they were asleep, but they woke enough to send tendrils of care in her direction.    
  
Natasha couldn’t speak — she just stood there, staring into her mother’s eyes, hands in fists, shaking, desperate to Touch.    
  
“Natalia,” her mother said, voice so familiar. Red hair, green eyes, just an inch below her height, the same hands, a similar nose.    
  
“Mama,” Natasha said, and held out her hands, a pair of the deadliest hands in the world, that had helped to kill an intergalactic menace some weeks earlier, not so far away.    
  
Her mother took Natasha’s hands without hesitation and held them to her own cheeks.  Love and sorrow poured into Natasha like old wine.    
  
*They took you,* her mother thought, *I never thought I’d see you again, my child, my baby, my beautiful Natasha.*  
  
“Mama,” Natasha said again, crying, tears of old sorrow and the birth of new joy.  
  
Her mother led her in and shut the door.  Tea, memories, delicate fingers stroking fine red hair, pictures of a little girl Natasha could now, at long last, remember.    
  
“You are a hero,” her mother said, smiling incredulously.  “You wanted to be a ballerina.  And you saved the whole world.”  
  
Natasha smiled and wiped again at her eyes, sipped at her tea, and held her mother’s hand.    
  
“I have everything now,” she said, “all I ever wanted.”    
  
“I just wanted to see that you are happy,” her mother said.  
  
“I am,” Natasha said.  She felt her life leading to this moment, and beyond, how everything had fallen into place: her home, her friends, her work, the life she’d made.  Destiny was an idea she couldn’t bring herself to believe in, even when Bucky looked at her with his shining face and smiled.  
  
“From now on, this world will be a better place,” he’d promised.  “A golden age is upon us.”  
  
“I just want to know my past,” Natasha said, *my mother,* she said in her heart.    
  
Bucky spun the globe and his finger fell in Siberia.  “We’ll find her for you, then,” he’d promised, a promise made real.  
  
With her life newly in place inside her head, an afternoon’s tea with her mother the first day of the rest of her life, Natasha slowly walked back towards Clint. The light of summer fell on Irkutsk and it all looked new, everything felt changed.    
  
She stood for a moment, gingerly felt forward, and everything was glowing: a golden age.    
  
She decided to accept that golden glow as a gift, shook her head, and smiled.    She and Clint would need a hotel room; they’d be staying in Irkutsk a while.    
  
   
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Needed to add a little coda so that Natasha could recover her memories the way Bucky did. :) Hope you like it!


End file.
